The final research course I was bound to take in order to complete my degree here at Northern Arizona University (NAU) took me down a path of intense and insightful research I wouldn’t have other been subjected to if not for college, an experience I am forever indebted to because of the impact it has left on my future career.

The research I have conducted during my time at NAU has challenged my original ideas of journalism and opened my eyes to new ways technology can be integrated in this field. While the journalism program not only gave me a hand in all things multimedia, from AP style writing to learning how to operate a professional video camera, the research I conducted over the course of five months taught me how to harness the true value of journalism with the introduction of new technologies.

Adding up my love for local journalism

When I first arrived at NAU, I had no idea what journalism in action looked like. I didn’t go to a high school that had a lot of opportunities to get involved in immersive media, so I only really understood what journalism looked like from movies, television news and my own research on what the job entails.

I went through my first year as a journalism major just taking my prerequisites and trying to figure out where I fit in this field of study. Did I want to be a broadcast sports reporter? Did I want to travel the world as a National Geographic documentary filmmaker? Did I want to work as a print writer covering a range of topics in my area?

The possibilities were endless, but so was my anxiety when trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my major for the next three years.

That was until one of my journalism professors, Katherine Locke, suggested I submit one of my class articles to the school’s student-led newspaper, The Lumberjack. Not having heard of The Lumberjack before, I inquired more about it and knew immediately that’s where I belonged.

Stepping into the media innovation center (MIC) inside of the School of Communication for the first time to start working as a student journalist was exciting to say the least. I had finally found a space where journalism was tangible, and I wanted to dive right in.

Starting my fall semester of sophomore year, I found myself as a Lifestyle writer for The Lumberjack and I couldn’t have been happier. I was surrounded by an immense amount of support and by others who also wanted to be a part of something that brought together creativity and community.

I worked at The Lumberjack for three semesters. The first two, as a Lifestyle writer, and my last as the Lifestyle section’s assistant editor. I was able to witness and participate in the production of two magazines our organization put together all on our own as student journalists. As well as receive internship experience at a local newspaper for a semester, the Arizona Daily Sun, where I now work full-time thanks to The Lumberjack.

Working at The Lumberjack was a great opportunity for me to learn the basics and deep-rooted ethics in the field of journalism. I developed a strong sense of the AP style guidelines, gained experience in editing others’ articles and got to understand what it truly means to be a trusted resource of news for a community of people.

Stepping into my role at the Arizona Daily Sun was no different. I was hired specifically by the Arizona Media Association (AMA) as Northern Arizona’s first and only Education Solutions Reporter. Because of the AMA, my position exists to reshape the community conversation and impact for the biggest issues affecting Arizona’s future in education.

The front of Northern Arizona University’s School of Communication. The School of Communication homes the Media Innovation Center (MIC). Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

The Lumberjack and the Arizona Daily Sun are some of the main news organizations residents in Flagstaff stay up to date on for news around town, and I get to be a part of that every day. Like my time at The Lumberjack, I hold my position as an education solutions reporter with great pride and continue to evaluate my place in this role even with the new developments of growing AI technology.

Discovering AI as a journalism student

The developments of generative AI started in June 2018, according to Educators Technology. I didn’t attend NAU until Fall 2022 when AI was still being developed but was not far behind being a prominent tool used by college students around the world.

The 2025 AI in Education Trends Report indicated that 90% of college students have used AI academically. This high amount of AI use among students reigns true in the percentage of newsrooms that use it as well.

According to AP News, nearly 70% of news organizations in the United States use generative AI in their newsrooms. This amount of AI use in newsrooms is reported to have already changed tasks and the workflow in these spaces.

So, how does this apply to me now as a student and professional journalist? Why did I decide to evaluate the implications of AI in the field of journalism?

To answer the first question, AI didn’t impact me immediately at first. It wasn’t until my junior year at NAU as The Lumberjack’s lifestyle assistant editor, I realized how much AI was going to start to impact journalistic spaces.

It was my second semester of my junior year when my Lifestyle editor, Abbey Sobelman, brought it to my attention that she suspected one of our writers had used AI to write a quarter of her article. I ran it through an AI detector and was disappointed to find that the suspicions were true.

We addressed the issue as a team and were able to come to a resolution with our writer, but this moment has stuck in my head ever since. This moment made me realize that the use and abuse of AI was going to be something I needed to look out for now, more than ever before in this industry.

That brings us to the next question, why I decided to dedicate my last semester of college researching the implications of AI in the field of journalism.

I had become more aware of this kind of technology because of this moment with my writer and finally realized AI had made its way into my student-led newspaper after only hearing rumors of it from articles on major news publications like the New York Times and AP News.

Honestly, I grew a negative opinion on the use of AI because I viewed it as a way for journalists to cheat their way through the process of producing an authentic story. After that encounter, I was set on complete rejection of AI and all the tools that came with it because I didn’t want to possibly contribute to the detriment of journalism.

After spending almost four years studying the traditional values of journalism and what it means to have the responsibility of accounting human stories, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea allowing AI to diminish the power of authentic expertise that fuels this area of study.

I carried that view in my role at the Arizona Daily Sun and found my perspective being clouded by judgment. That was until I entered my last semester at NAU and was challenged by my capstone professor to come up with a research project around a topic I was passionate about.

Generating a research topic

(Above) A screenshot of Jesselle Ortegon’s, Arizona Daily Sun’s education solutions reporter, posts on the news organization’s website. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

Rachel Cox, my journalism capstone professor, told us during our very first class of spring semester that we were required to pick a unique topic we were interested in exploring to complete an almost five-month long research project. After this followed a speech on the harsh reality that comes with investigative reporting to this extent, but I was ready for the challenge.

Immediately, I knew I wanted my capstone project to be a written series about the negative implications of AI on local journalism.

After the encounter with my writer at The Lumberjack and some interactions with co-workers at Arizona Daily Sun who openly use ChatGPT for their reporting, I was headstrong on this topic. I was prepared to break down the weaknesses and negative impacts of AI and prove to my peers why they are mistaken for using this kind of software.

That was until I dived deeper into my research and in-person interviews and I realized I went about my project all wrong. I knew I didn’t want to play devil’s advocate and be on the forefront of AI in journalism, but I also wasn’t allowing myself to be open minded to all scopes of this topic like a true journalist would.

Before coming to this realization, I was still set on my ways in finding a way to debunk the advantages of AI and geared my research toward that agenda. However, I found myself at a roadblock when trying to gather primary and secondary sources.

AI is relatively new in general; long-standing journalists didn’t experience AI to this extent, and new journalists are still trying to figure out what this means for their career. While I could find a plethora of academic articles regurgitating the same negative opinions on AI, my in-person sources offered a new perspective on how to utilize the tool.

Chris Etling, managing editing at Arizona Daily Sun and my boss, admitted to me he isn’t the forefront of AI either but recognizes the ways it has made his life as a journalist easier.

He uses generative tools to transcribe audio recordings, shift through databases and complete other routine tasks that he finds takes away time from more important tasks reporters can be attending to. Etling also acknowledged the double-edged sword that is AI in ways news organizations can’t control, using AI summaries as an example.

Because social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have now integrated AI summaries to save users time from clicking on posts they might not be interested in, smaller organizations like Arizona Daily Sun have suffered the consequences of losing viewers and subscriptions to its paper.

On the other hand, there are academic professionals who offer a more proactive approach to using AI in media.

Chris Johnson is a visual communication professor at NAU and taught his first semester of VC199: AI for Communication this past semester. This was part of his research of how students can incorporate AI in creative production and workflow.

After speaking with Johnson, I completely changed my approach to this topic.

“Hey ChatGPT, change my capstone topic completely.”

I sat in Johnson’s office for an hour learning about the work he’s done in his AI for communication class and how he’s encouraged his students to harness AI in a way that refines their work, not replaces it.

NAZ Today students gather inside of the media innovation center (MIC) receiving direction from former news director (far right), Makayla Richardson, about a news package they were preparing to film. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

He explained all the dynamic and useful ways both student and professional journalists can utilize AI in a way that doesn’t need to cross the boundaries of the traditional ethics they’ve been taught to follow. After initially stepping into this project ready to bash all use of AI, Johnson was there to remind me why I am a journalist.

Our conversation helped me to remove the previous lens I was looking at AI through and allow room for a new one. This realization made me reevaluate the direction of my project and set me on the right path for the completion of my capstone.

My research now revolved around appropriately expressing concerns around AI backed up by first-hand encounters while also allowing room for AI to present itself as a tool that can be collaborative if used correctly.

For the remainder of the time I had to complete this project, my passion was fueled by the fire of what my story could become. The more I wrote, the more pride and confidence I felt in executing this story.

What I thought was going to be a long-form story that captures the entirety of my topic turned out to be a multi-part series on AI from a local perspective, what the ethical use of AI looks like for the future and now, sharing where I fit in all of this. It also ended up being one of the most impactful experiences for me as a journalist.

I learned one of the most important lessons as a journalist from this research: people who consume news about their community rely on reporters to provide them with accurate and open-minded information on topics that directly impact them. If I don’t open myself up to both sides of where AI stands in the field of journalism, I’m not fulfilling my duties as a journalist to report on a topic completely.

So, what did I learn?

After almost five months of dedicating long nights and reevaluating crucial parts of my project, I can say I have come out of this entire experience with an entirely new perspective of my role as a journalist and where I stand with AI for the better.

Voices like Chris Etling and Chris Johnson offered powerful perspectives on the where generative AI will take journalism in the future and how they see it at work now in journalistic spaces. Their expertise allowed me to expand my thinking about how AI tools can advance everyday operations in global and local newsrooms without diminishing the power of humans’ stories and their ability to account them first-hand.

In fact, with the power of new technological tools, journalists will have more time to reach out to communities, tell the stories that matter and keep the true values of journalism alive. Artificial intelligence, if used with traditional ethics and responsibility to the public in mind, will take care of the rest while driving newsrooms around the globe toward an innovative path of reporting.

There is still research and testing to be done on AI tools advertised toward journalists, but I am proud to be a part of the generation of journalists who will get to witness the growth of the powerful tool that is AI and the way it will revolutionize journalism as we know it.

Major organizations such as the New York Times and AP News have openly shared with their readers ways they use AI and the value they find in it in their newsrooms. The organizations use phrases like, “As a tool in service of our mission,” “the forefront of leveraging artificial intelligence to shape news” and share ways in which they use these tools to create AI-powered content.

AI is becoming an integral part of newsrooms around the world, according to Communication Today’s study on AI in the media industry, influencing the way content is created, produced and distributed. For newsrooms like the New York Times and AP News, AI tools allow their reporters to produce content more quickly and efficiently at a lower cost while increasing access to content for their audiences.

While newsrooms on a more global scale have encountered AI in a positive way and have figured out where it fits in their organizations, smaller, more local newsrooms are struggling to co-exist with this new tool.

Chris Etling, managing editor at the Arizona Daily Sun, has been in the industry for nearly 20 years and claims he has never seen technology grow as rapidly as AI has. This has become both a bad and good thing for him as a local journalist as AI has helped him perform routine tasks quicker, however, it has also done some damage to the success of his beloved paper.

“In one way it has changed [local news coverage] is that AI is basically scraping our news for the benefit of places like meta slash Facebook and Instagram,” Etling said. “AI summaries are hurting us because not only does it circumvent the paywall, which is its own issue, especially when we worked hard on a story and we’re trying to drive traffic to the website, but it’s also just hurting views in general.”

This is just one example of the implications of AI.

AI tools may allow for quicker and cheaper content, but there remains the question of whether these technologies fulfil and value the same worthiness criteria of traditional journalism. AI challenges the traditional norms of journalism, and there is no way to study the way these tools conform with the news value and ethical principles in this field without examining and evaluating it in terms of accuracy, impartiality and transparency.

One of researchers’ main concerns about the implications of AI is the possibility of disinformation. According to a study published by Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, AI tools expand the scope of disinformation, which presents challenges to media trust and journalistic integrity. Deepfakes, AI-generated photos, videos or voice recordings – that are difficult to distinguish from authentic content– are trying to facilitate the distribution and creation of realistic, multimodal content.

This was found to have a spill-over effect on people’s trust in the news in general and their credibility to accurately authenticate information.

Just recently, images of the Spider-Man co-stars, Zendaya and Tom Holland, depicted wearing wedding attire quickly spread across social media on March 4. Fans reacted almost immediately to the idea of the couple secretly tying the knot.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Zendaya broke her silence to late-night host Jimmy Kimmel telling him “many people have been fooled by them” in regards to the slew of AI-generated “wedding photos” circulating the internet on March 16. The actress finally addressed the AI images after even people in her close circles started to congratulate her.

Moreover, the use of AI has also raised ethical social concerns. Journalists around the world are worried about losing their jobs to AI-assisted news. Unlike other traditional professions, journalism struggles to monopolize access to the profession and fight off external challenges to their jurisdiction. This vulnerability leaves tasks performed by journalists susceptible to replacement not by other occupations but by technology itself.

Though he’s seen the direct impact of AI tools on local newsrooms, Etling reported that he does not see this technology taking over human expertise any time soon as it does not have the means to do so.

Visual communications professor, Chris Johnson, poses with a 3D printed art piece designed by him and his students. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

“There are ways I think people think AI is going to take over in this industry,” Etling said. “I think it can be handy, but you still have to go back in and verify to make sure it’s correct because we don’t want to miscite a source.”

As digital journalism starts to become a prominent outlet for news organizations, journalists must harness AI with ethical discernment for the changing principles of journalism and learn how to use the tools not to replace human expertise but to revolutionize it. This, however, will take further research and practice from a global and local scale to fully understand how these AI tools will continue to push the boundaries of journalism.

Gearing journalists up for evolving technology

Chris Johnson, visual communication professor at Northern Arizona University (NAU), reminds us that AI tools are used in journalism more often and in less harmful ways than people think.

“The Blox system [the media students] use actually has AI integrated into it,” he said. “Also, hashtags are super important. All the meta data that goes behind the article is important. The Blox system will actually help you rank how many hits it will get and how much it’ll be posted, so that’s an interesting integration of AI into journalism.”

Johnson has a broad background in visual communication, with expertise in web design, 3D modeling, motion graphics, project management and art direction. He received his undergraduate degree at Central Washington University (CWU), later achieving his graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where, at the time, he was leading website development for Encyclopedia and Britannica.

“I’ve always found myself learning about technology and teaching people about technology,” Johnson said.

During his undergraduate studies, Johnson wrote a grant proposal for a computer, a tablet and painting software for the program at CWU. At one point in his educational career, he found himself teaching his professors about new technologies that could enhance the quality of education he and his peers were receiving.

While reflecting on his time in higher education, he acknowledges how much collegiate level education has changed because of the development of ChatGPT – a generative AI chatbot developed by OpenAI in 2022. The chatbot uses generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) to generate text, speech and images in response to users’ prompts.

Johnson finds this to be exciting for educational institutions and students, particularly those who are studying any form of communication.

The professor recently taught his first semester of VC199: AI for Communication at NAU, a course that encourages his students to use AI tools to test how they can be integrated in creative research and production workflows.

He emphasizes in his research on AI for communication and to his students that AI tools should not be seen as a replacement for the work they can do themselves, but rather a resource to enhance it.

“It’s less about replacing jobs, and more about redefining the roles of the jobs,” Johnson said. “Rethinking, I think that’s the hardest part because we’ll have to rethink how we do things, and that’s scary.”

Johnson thinks the biggest reason why people, or journalism students, are more hesitant to use generative AI tools is because of fear. This is why he teaches his AI for Communication, so he can engage students with the tools, guide them through the ethics of using the tools and ease some of the uncertainty that comes with harnessing new technological software.

“One thing we talked about in that class is transparency,” Johnson said.

Transparency draws the line between demonstrating ethical discernment with the usage of AI tools and straight up abusing them to do all the work for you, he said. As long as students can be honest with themselves and others about their usage of AI, there should be less concern for abuse and misinformation.

“If you use an image that uses AI, let us know,” he said. “If you use an image that is created by a person, let us know.”

The professor admits that AI can flatten originality when everybody is relying on one source that can become homogeneous, so he brought in guest speaker, Kurt Lancaster, to speak to his VC199 class about the perplexity of training AI tools on source materials and having those citations built in what they were working on.

This was another way he guided his students in a more ethical direction with the usage of AI.

When asked why he chose to teach a class around AI and using it in digital media, Johnson said “there’s a need for it.”

“I think we have a chance to lead by example and really do the right things, and from that, other areas can understand,” he said.

Chris Johnson, visual communications professor at Northern Arizona University (NAU) poses in his office inside the School of Communication. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

Johnson had a journalism student in his AI for Communication class and saw how using AI tools assisted her. For an article the student was writing about the First Friday art walk taking place in Downtown Flagstaff, he encouraged her to ask ChatGPT to create an itinerary, a list of questions to ask business owners and residents and provide a step-by-step process on how to conduct routine journalist tasks.

While advising his student not to let the chatbot write their entire article, Johnson noted it could be useful for proofreading for correct grammar as it is no “different than Grammarly,” he said. Grammarly is an American English-language writing assistant software that started as a tool to review spelling, grammar and tone of a piece of writing and recently integrated extensive AI tools in 2025.

“It doesn’t really change the process, it just helps you become more efficient at your process and maybe even think of questions you wouldn’t have come up with before that would enhance that final product or article that you’re wanting to write,” Johnson said.

Testing the tools

As a professional journalist, I wanted to test Johnson’s guidance, so I entered the same event and prompts he suggested into ChatGPT and these were the results the chatbot yielded.

(Above) Results yielded from ChatGPT when asked to answer a prompt about a local journalism event and how to conduct field reporting. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

First, it generated a “Reporting Itinerary” to start my field reporting along with time stamps of how long I should stay at each business coordinated with the time of the event and why I should visit them. ChatGPT also included direct links for directions to each spot.

The chatbot then provided lists of different interview questions to ask specific groups of people based on the event including business owners, artists and attendees. The list ranged from one to five questions inquiring about the event and what certain individuals’ participation was. Each question was catered to ask each group specifically about their experience at the art walk based on their reasoning for attending.

(Above) These are the results yielded from ChatGPT when asked to generate field reporting tips for a possible article. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

According to an article published by the International Journalists’ Network (IJNet), ChatGPT can be effective for journalists preparing for interviews by creating questions modeled after the context fed to the software. The tool can even pull information previously available about the event or topic to assist the reporter in getting more information before going out in the field to gather interviews.

However, author of the article, Marina Cemaj Hochstein, cautions other journalists to be aware of ChatGPT’s major flaw – it can’t be trusted.

Hochstein explains that ChatGPT is only trained on data it has collected from the internet as of 2021, sometimes leading to an answer that is not factually correct.

This flaw in the AI tool is why Etling advises other journalists who decide to use these types of software to practice discernment and be able to verify work on their own.

“Even though AI is adapting and learning, there are still times where in [photos] things will have six fingers or there are clearly gibberish words,” Etling said. “There are still flaws that are going to have to be worked on. In some ways, I’m glad for that because it also exposes AI in times in an industry when we need to know when something is real or has been generated.”

The third part of the results from ChatGPT provided “Reporting Tips While You’re There,” which broke down how to take notes on observational details, useful quotes and what kind of photos to capture while attending the event. This is a useful tip for beginning journalists like Johnson’s journalism student who might need assistance painting a picture of what was occurring at the event in their writing.

(Above) These are the results yeilded from ChatGPT when asked to generate field reporting tips for a possible article. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

The last of the results yielded from Johnson’s suggested prompt was a “What to do after the interviews” workflow plan that laid out an outline for organizing notes, identifying a story angle and structuring the article. As previously mentioned, ChatGPT is also capable of transcribing audio recordings from interviews, which can be particularly helpful in making the writing process faster for reporters.

(Above)Results yielded from ChatGPT after being fed a prompt about a local Flagstaff event and how to perform field reporting to write an article. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

Etling himself has used AI tools to organize information and gather video clips from the internet for practical purposes. He said being able to put a quick prompt into ChatGPT has made gathering sources easier and quicker.

“Stuff like that is really handy, and there are opportunities to save significant time,” Etling said. “Because if it’s about busy work, using AI tools to help us and make sure we’re spending more time on what matters is great. That means we have more time out there pounding the pavement, talking to more people about stories.”

The managing editor describes AI tools as data aggregators and a “fancier version of a search engine,” which he said can be powerful for journalists.

So, where does it fit and where do we go from here?

As AI continues to be developed, it is important for training and current journalists to be prepared for what that could mean for the dynamics of their newsrooms. Rather than seeing it as a replacement, journalists will find it much easier to integrate AI tools into their workflow if they view it rather as a collaborator.

“I think it’s empowering for journalism,” Johnson said. “It really allows you to be the best you. You know, come up with a kickass story and use AI in the process, not necessarily using it for your final product but some of the tools [it offers].”

Generative AI is not the only form of these tools available for journalists to use. There are more accurate and specifically designed resources for journalists that utilize AI without crossing the boundaries of the traditional ethics of journalism.

One of the most helpful resources for journalists who are looking for a place to start looking at AI tools is the SPJ Toolbox presented by the Society of Professional Journalists. The website as a section labeled “AI tools for journalists” that directs to a new page full of links to various AI resources for editing texts, photos and videos, text-generation, organization and more.

When journalists visit this page, they are greeted with an editor’s note advising viewers to consult the articles at the bottom of the page on AI ethics and best practices for journalists while exploring all the tools available. This demonstrates some sort of responsibility of the organizations providing these tools to remind users about the level of accountability they should take when navigating AI.

The SPJ Toolbox is a good starting point for journalists who are starting to work with AI whether in print, video or photography. No matter what specific area of journalism someone works in, being trained in different mediums is important when trying to stand out for job opportunities and creating a portfolio, Etling said.

“Writer should probably have more photo experience,” Etling said. “A lot of jobs we’re seeing in the industry right now are people wearing several hats. You can’t get away with just being a writer. Most of the time. I think the best journalists who are going forward in 2026 are the ones who can do a little bit of everything. Write, take pictures, shoot videos.”

(Above) A screenshot of the “AI Tools for Journalists” webpage on SPJ Toolbox’s website that provides artificial intelligence (AI) tools for writing, videography and photography. Jesselle Ortegon. May 6, 2026.

In an industry that is changing with new faces, new stories and new technologies entering the scope of everyday journalism, reporters are constantly looking for ways to push the boundaries in a way that evokes thought and informs their audience. While AI is still developing and newsrooms are still learning where it fits in their workspace, journalists should take the opportunity to get ahead of these advances and learn how they can harness such a powerful tool in all areas of journalism.

AI has the potential to improve not just the process of reporting for journalists but also the level of expertise in the different areas of journalism as well. If news organizations move toward the ethical usage of AI, the field could be seeing a new generation of journalists with an entirely new development of technological skills alongside the skills of traditional journalism still valued today.

That is quite the number of consistent news consumers who have relied on the Sun over the years to deliver local news coverage.

Managing editor of the Daily Sun, Chris Etling, has been working at the paper that sits just west of town since 2009. He sits at a tall desk looking over stories for the week, collaborating with print design and leading newsroom meetings, and has seen first-hand the way journalism and local newsrooms have changed with the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI).

“As more stuff gets poured into AI, we’re seeing it evolve rapidly in a way that even technology back then didn’t,” Etling said. “It’s both fascinating and kind of scary because we haven’t seen the limits of what it can do, both good and bad.”

Since the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) in the early 2000s to 2019, there has been recent technological developments in national and local newsrooms that include the possible integration of AI tools to simulate human tasks.

These new developments have sparked conversation around what the landscape and ethics of journalism will look like as AI tools begin to make an appearance in more and more newsrooms around the country. While there are supporters of AI who argue it has the potential to make journalists’ jobs easier without replacing human expertise, there are some who don’t see the value in even training such tools to be part of their work routine.

As AI continues to be an undeniable force in technological advancement, with no foreseeable halt to its growth, it raises the question for training and current journalists of how they should approach the presence of AI without losing the traditional values of journalism.

Chris Etling, managing editor at the Arizona Daily Sun, poses for a headshot outside of the Arizona Daily Sun office in Flagstaff, Arizona. Courtesy of Hattie Loper. May 6, 2026.

The power to account

When Etling first started his career in journalism, AI technology had not evolved yet. He said the development of AI has changed drastically over the past couple of years in a way he hadn’t seen before.

His work in journalism started during his time attending Northern Arizona University (NAU) in the early 2000s.

He started off studying electronic media, now referred to as the Creative Media and Film degree program, where he first planned to become a baseball broadcaster. After quickly realizing that might not be the path for him, Etling dabbled in studying education for a couple years before ultimately landing on journalism.

“Educators have a level of energy and commitment that I don’t know that I was up to the task for,” Etling said. “We’ve all had teachers that have so much infectious energy that you’re like, ‘What’s happening? I don’t understand.’ That was never me. Then when I found journalism, it seemed like I’d finally seen what my calling was.”

Around the same time Etling switched his major to journalism, he took on a position as a copy editor at the student-led newspaper, The Lumberjack, and eventually worked his way up to editor-in-chief. He worked the newspaper for 4 and a half years, holding the editor-in-chief position for three semesters.

Etling said while he was in high school, he thought of himself to be more of a “math guy.” Not only was it until he attended NAU did he realize that words were his wheelhouse.

“There’s something about the English language that’s fascinating,” Etling said. “It’s a mess. It’s a mongrel. It’s made up of so many other words stolen from other languages that don’t make sense. So, there’s something I thought that caught on early, and once I realized that you could maybe make a career out of it, the idea that maybe I could find a spot in it was what eventually got me to sort of lean into it for a career.”

Etling heard of an opportunity to work at the Arizona Daily Sun during his last semester at NAU from a fellow student journalist and got his foot in the door as a copy editor and layout editor. That was 17 years ago, and Etling is still motivated by what he does today, now, as a managing editor.

Through this experience, Etling spent years learning the traditional values and ethics of journalism that fuels the human expertise that makes this field so important. The evolution of AI hasn’t changed this passionate journalist’s belief in the principles that guide powerful journalism.

He believes newspapers, small or big, are important for holding the power to account. Etling said local newspapers serve as a way to keep a community informed.

“We have to make sure that things as small as local city council meetings and school boards and governing boards are being covered because there’s a possibility that power is being misused at any level,” Etling said. “Any opportunity to shine a light on the misjustices in the world is what we’re responsible for.”

Etling notes that though The Sun isn’t always covering such intense issues on a daily basis, the paper still serves as a core to what keeps the community connected.

According to the American Journalism Project, local news is the most trusted source for information in the world. It connects people to their community and uplifts voices that otherwise would go unheard. Like Etling explained, local news demands accountability from decision-making structures like local governments or school boards, while valuing the empowerment of local voices.

“It’s also sort of keeping the heartbeat of the community in mind,” Etling said. “It’s about what’s happening out there that matters, telling stories. So yes, in everyone’s mind they set out to be like, ‘This is going to be the next Watergate. We’re going to do this work that really matters.’ And sometimes it does. But what also matters is documenting the community.”

Etling adds that the way this local information is delivered to the public matters as well, and he has thought of what the implications of AI could mean for the delivery of local news.

New tools, same rules

Etling himself has experimented with AI here and there on a personal and practical level. He believes AI tools have the potential to be helpful with transcribing audio recordings and accumulating existing data. However, Etling said just because he’s a younger editor in this field compared to other editors he’s encountered, doesn’t mean he’s on the forefront of empowering AI in journalism.

“We have had a couple examples of things coming from outside the organization where AI is misused, and it’s not really all that different from plagiarism in the old days,” Etling said. “If I ever saw a reporter do it, the tolerance for that would be on the same level of plagiarism because that’s not what we’re here for. And to be frank, I don’t think we want to be journalists exploring a world where AI could do our jobs.”

Though Etling doesn’t think AI at this stage has the capability to take over journalism, he said opening the door for it in the wrong way is not the right way to go about harnessing AI.

According to a 2025 article published by the United Nations, AI presents both a power tool and a threat to press freedom, integrity and public trust. Reshaping the journalism field by integrating AI presents major implications such as the spread of misinformation, putting traditional news outlets in an economic strain and the rise in deepfakes and other AI-generated media.

“AI summaries are hurting us because not only does it circumvent the paywall, which is its own issue, but if we worked hard on a story and we’re trying to drive traffic to the website, we want people to hit the paywall, maybe subscribe, you know, come back to us,” Etling said. “It’s also just hurting views in general and then views also hurt ad impressions, and everything is sort of connected. So it’s been extremely frustrating.”

Etling said there are issues with AI outside the control of journalists, making it thorny for the industry going forward. However, he believes it is the responsibility of a reporter to have the right discernment when using AI tools to uphold professional ethics and integrity and keep the trust of people who have been consuming local news for decades.

“It’s still really important that people know that they can come for us for information that is reliable,” Etling said. “It’s why we have to use these tools correctly because if we get caught with our hand in the cookie jar going, ‘Oh, that was AI and we didn’t realize it,’ and we wrote a whole article about it, that undermines the trust we’ve built up for the last decades or centuries as newspapers.”

The truth is, we won’t see the full impact of generative AI in newsrooms both global and local until its usage is fully examined in and out of these spaces. It is up to Chris Etling and journalists alike to determine for themselves the role they want to allow AI to have in their work and how it will change the way they view the traditional principles of journalism.