Lucía Méndez warns of algorithms’ impact on journalism: “Its significance is absolute and total”

At the Fuerteventura Summer University, the journalist champions journalism as a humanist profession in the face of the power of algorithms, the radicalisation of public debate and the arrival of artificial intelligence.

Journalist Lucía Méndez, one of El Mundo’s founding journalists still active in the profession and one of the most eagerly awaited speakers at the fourth Fuerteventura Summer University, shared her concerns at a time when the profession we knew is disappearing, just as democracy needs reliable intermediaries between facts and the public more than ever.

“We used to mediate between institutions and citizens, and now that mediating role is gone,” Méndez warned, reflecting on a profession that for decades had the power to “decide” and “rank the news”.

That power, she argued, has been diluted in an ecosystem where newspapers no longer occupy a central position and where “people don’t read newspapers or get their information from conventional media”.

The journalist rejected the idea that her perspective was merely melancholic or rooted in nostalgia for the loss of influence. “I don’t believe that everything was better in the past; I’m simply explaining what the past was like,” she said, questioning whether the democratisation of public space had really brought about a better democracy.

“Is it better to have a democracy where public debate has become radicalised, with constant insults?” she asked, warning against a public sphere turned into “this racket, this violence, this war of words”.

Who decides in newsrooms? Journalists forced to change headlines and content to fit the algorithm

In her analysis, one of the major forces to have changed the profession is the impact of algorithms on newsrooms. The venerable newspapers of an earlier era have fallen into the hands of platforms, “in an obvious way”, she said.

In her view, audience reach no longer depends solely on the quality of journalism, but on “opaque algorithms” that are constantly changing.

As a result, she added, journalists are forced to adapt headlines and stories to requirements that nobody fully understands.

“For a technology company to be directing newsrooms in practice,” she said, has “absolute and total significance”. That pressure affects not only editors but also day-to-day work, as journalists try to attract more attention, change headlines or get caught up in a noisier approach.

“AI doesn’t go out on the streets, speak to the building caretaker or talk to people things happen to”

Méndez was less pessimistic about artificial intelligence, however. She acknowledged that she does not use it and still does “craft work, like a potter working with clay to make a vessel”. But she argued that there is an area where machines cannot replace journalists: reporting on the ground, speaking to sources, witnessing suffering and making human contact.

“Artificial intelligence can’t report on an eviction in Madrid or how the victims experience it,” she said. Nor can it “call a politician” or go to the scene. “AI doesn’t go out on the streets, speak to the building caretaker or talk to people things happen to,” she said.

Méndez linked the profession’s resilience to its deepest roots. “Our profession is, fundamentally, a humanist one. Human beings are our raw material.” That is why she still sees hope. Technology may replace tasks, but not the perspective, presence or ability to understand what people are going through.