# The GenAI Catch-22: Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Norwegian Newsrooms During the 2025 Parliamentary Election

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.10773 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.10773/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Models: Principles, Taxonomy, Challenges, and Open Questions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.05232/) (2023)
- [Siren's Song in the AI Ocean: A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.01219/) (2023)
- [Documenting Large Webtext Corpora: A Case Study on the Colossal Clean Crawled Corpus](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08758/) (2021)
- [On the Conversational Persuasiveness of Large Language Models: A Randomized Controlled Trial](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14380/) (2024)
- [Guiding the Way: A Comprehensive Examination of AI Guidelines in Global Media](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.04706/) (2024)
- [Artificial Intelligence in Election Campaigns: Perceptions, Penalties, and Implications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.12613/) (2024)
- [On Controlled Change: Generative AI's Impact on Professional Authority in Journalism](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.19792/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The increasing use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in journalism raises concerns about possible detrimental effects both on journalism and its democratic function. We explore these risks through a case study of GenAI in Norwegian Newsrooms during the 2025 parliamentary election campaign. Based on interviews with managers and journalists over a ten-month period, we analyse how ambitious visions fared in the face of technological and practical challenges. We highlight the risk of an internal threat stemming from the journalists' own use of AI, contrasting the dominant focus on external disinformation threats. We show how newsroom managers shared sociotechnical imaginaries resulting in unrealistically optimistic beliefs about the capabilities of the technology and the pace of development, leading to plans for audience-facing GenAI services collapsing and giving way to more mundane uses of GenAI tools internally in the newsrooms. Furthermore, we identify a vulnerability in the newsroom's resilience against GenAI influence: a GenAI Catch-22. In order to monitor the GenAI tools and prevent errors and undue influence, newsrooms rely on human expertise. But by using GenAI extensively, the newsrooms risk a deterioration of human expertise, preventing them from monitoring the GenAI systems adequately.