Impact of ChatGPT on High School Student Publications

Aaron Manfull, MJE, a teacher at Francis Howell North High School in St. Charles, Missouri, had heard of ChatGPT before the spring of 2023. However, he didn’t necessarily consider it as a classroom tool until a fellow journalism educator asked him to post an article on the Journalism Education Association’s digital media website. The article, written by Kathryn Campbell from the St. Paul Academy and Summit School in Minnesota, detailed how she had used ChatGPT to generate a checklist that would assist with improving productivity throughout a new draft cycle.

Manfull, who serves as chair of the digital media committee, said Campbell’s article was a “tipping point” that allowed him to see the true possibilities offered by using this new technology in student publications.

“From an educator’s standpoint, what I started seeing is using some of these bots for the step-by-step process that (new teachers) might not understand or know how to do,” Manfull said. “Instead of sifting through 15 websites, see if you can get a chat bot to at least get you to curate some of that stuff and give you a starting point.”

Manfull said something such as ChatGPT can be extremely valuable to those student media teachers who might not be surrounded by a large, readily accessible group of educators who specialize in scholastic journalism. While he said he was lucky to have friends and family within the field, there are others who might consider turning to AI due to a lack of collaboration within their community.

“I remember being thrust into things a lot of times where I was going to have to teach something new, and I was very fortunate to have support. But I know not everybody is that lucky,” he said. “Having some other resources out there to help give you that jumping point where you can get that nine-step guide to write a caption or ways to write a headline are such great starts for teachers of any kind.”

Much like Manfull, educator Kristin Taylor, MJE, said AI such as ChatGPT is a new discussion topic at The Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles, where she serves as the sole journalism teacher and student media adviser. Taylor, who also teaches English courses, said the conversations among both faculty and students have focused on advantages and disadvantages of using the software.

“Understandably, teachers have an instant fear of any type of new technology like this because of the issue of cheating and plagiarism,” Taylor said. “Basically, what we’ve all concluded is kids can use it, but they’re not going to ace anything with it at this point.”

Instead, Taylor said journalism teachers and students should be worried about the accuracy of AI content because a portion of the source material can be false information that’s purposely produced to mislead large audiences.

She also said students could sacrifice the power of their voice by turning to the technology for producing much of their content.

“Their voice has a purpose, right? And relying on AI to create original material is actually undermining their own personal voice and agency,” she said. “It’s not as easy, at this point, for it to just be a substitute for students.”

However, Taylor said journalism educators shouldn’t be fearful of tools such as ChatGPT. Instead, they should look at this as an opportunity to teach their students proper ways to capitalize on the benefits of AI while avoiding its dangers.

“I think about when calculators came on the scene in mathematics. There was this fear if you use a calculator, you’re not going to learn the skill,” she said. “I feel like it’s the same with writing. My hope is that eventually I, and other educators like me, become comfortable enough with (ChatGPT) as a tool that we figure out effective and useful ways to employ it without being terrified everyone’s just going to cheat.”

And it’s not just educators who have shown an uneasiness about an over-dependence on AI. One of Taylor’s student leaders, Charlotte Tragos, also expressed apprehension about her peers consistently turning to the technology for content creation.

As the school’s yearbook editor and columnist for the news website, Tragos has found students can become too reliant on ChatGPT as a source for information.

“It puts the responsibility on the consumer, the student, the reader to understand what is honest and what’s misinformation and oversimplification of challenging issues,” Tragos said. “I know that some of my friends use it to kind of synthesize a lot of material for schoolwork. It doesn’t work as a fact-checking tool. It often produces misinformation over simplification.”

This dependency on AI-generated material has also served as a catalyst for conversation at collegiate journalism programs. Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE, is the director of the Center for Scholastic Journalism at Kent State University’s School of Media and Journalism.

Perkins Bowen said many of her colleagues are worried about skills high school journalists may “inherit” before arriving at the university because they’ve made it a habit to turn to ChatGPT for much of their academic work. Some of her peers have already altered their syllabus in anticipation of an incoming class dependent on AI.

“They’re doing fewer out-of-class assignments, more in-class assignments, and even handwritten assignments,” Perkins Bowen said.

Perkins Bowen also serves as the executive director of the Ohio Scholastic Media Association, an organization that provides resources and support for the state’s journalism educators. She has heard from those who are reconfiguring lesson plans to limit students finding material online with AI assistance.

“They do the most-obscure (assignment) they possibly can because there would be less out there already on it,” Perkins Bowen said.

What’s also obscure with using ChatGPT in scholastic journalism are any legal pitfalls that come with producing, and distributing, material generated by the chat bot.

Mike Hiestand serves as the senior legal counsel for the Student Press Law Center, a non-profit that supports the First Amendment and press rights of student journalists and their advisers. He said while many of the legal questions surrounding AI content remain unanswered, it’s quite clear who is liable for its distribution — the publisher.

“Whether you have written it and created it yourself, or you have made that conscious decision or unconscious decision to actually hit submit, you are generally responsible for everything that goes in your print paper or online,” Hiestand said.

Yet Hiestand also said that liability isn’t a reason to ban scholastic journalists from using ChatGPT. Rather, it should serve as motivation for schools to allow access to the technology so they may properly educate their young reporters on its usage.

“This is reminiscent of the introduction of the Internet and then the introduction of social media,” he said. “You know the stuff is not going away. One of your jobs as an educator is to prepare your students for the world in which they are going to live.”

One of the most effective avenues of preparation is developing, and supporting, a strong student media program. Because while there is AI-detection software available such as GPTZero, Hiestand said a continued focus on media literacy via scholastic journalism can help guide young learners away from being overly dependent upon services such as ChatGPT.

“Anybody can just talk into their smartphone and get an article published. It’s going to be really important to rely upon people whose job it is to weigh sources and gauge their credibility,” he said. “Media literacy and journalism are going to be so much more important now than in the past.”