With AI and other media technologies playing a greater part in our lives, some news can now be written by computers. Has this change affected the occupational survival of Chinese content producers and their working habits? 

Liu Xiaolin, head of Audience Development at PR Newswire, makes a speech at the 2017 PR Newswire Summit on Thursday. [Photo by Xu Lin / China.org.cn ]

The PR Newswire, in a joint research project with the Media Lab of Toutiao.com, the School of Communication and Design of Sun Yat-sen University and lanmeih.com, published the 2017 Chinese Journalists' Working Habits Survey Report on Thursday. The report is based on an online survey and video interviews with 1,167 media professionals, including journalists, editors, We media practitioners and columnists.

According to the report, 52 percent of the respondents are aged between 21 and 30, which shows that most content producers are young. They have not seen significant increases in their income this year, and only 3.3 percent of them have a monthly income of over 20,000 yuan (US$3,030), yet 79.2 percent of them are willing to stay in the media circle in the next five years, a 10 percentage point increase from last year.

Liu Xiaolin, head of Audience Development at PR Newswire, said on a media forum that We media has become a strong power for spreading news. One in every three practitioners in the media circle is involved in We media. Most of them (85.5 percent) run We media individually, in the forms of texts and pictures (90.2 percent), short video clips, auto clips and live broadcasting. Nearly half do this out of personal interest.

Liu also revealed that most of the respondents have an optimistic attitude to and support AI. In their opinion, technologies are born for people, and can not only be a helping hand for journalists, but improve people's reading experience.

Content producers rely heavily on mobile equipment and nearly half (49.5 percent) of the respondents spend more than three hours every day obtaining information via mobile devices. However, Liu said, most of them still write on computers or in a stable place such as an office.

Valuable news, industrial views and interesting perspectives of stories are the favorite news elements of journalists. Industrial views, new products and services, interviews and innovative stories from enterprises attract the greatest attention of journalists. "There should be real news at the press conference. Providing more information for the audience is the most important thing for enterprises," Liu added.

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