For decades, journalism has been influenced by technological innovations that are constantly changing this profession. First, stories were told about new technologies, later with the help of technology, and now the news is written by technology. Algorithms can write news faster, with fewer errors and cheaper. However, the division of the various stages of news preparation - data collection, organization, analysis and dissemination - continues to change with automation and for the time being, journalists continue to be present to actually generate articles. This division is changing and even though the next step is just this: a step in the intertwining of technology in journalism, it involves a significant replacement in news writing as technology literally replaces a person, therefore it is not surprising that innovations increase the fear of a complete change in the journalistic profession. Due to the importance of journalistic understanding of automation in journalism, we analyzed 51 articles on the topic with the help of critical discourse analysis, following the main research question: How do journalists understand automation as a technological innovation in journalism? Findings show that journalists' understanding of automation as a technological innovation is complex and intertwined with fear, enthusiasm, opposition, and indecision. Most journalists see automation as inevitable, at the same time showing fear of change. Very few unconditionally oppose automation or show extreme enthusiasm for it. We would like to point out further research is needed in this area to help incorporate automation in journalistic work properly and thus enable quality and democratic journalism in the future.
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