Journalism Without Journalists? Italy’s “Il Foglio” Sparks a New Debate

Can a machine write the truth? That’s the question echoing daily across newsrooms after Il Foglio, a bold and traditionally sharp-edged newspaper in Italy, published an entire edition written by artificial intelligence. No reporters. No columnists. Just algorithms.

And not just any algorithms, this was a full-fledged, unapologetic editorial and culture experiment, where every line, every opinion, and every headline came from a machine. The move wasn’t subtle. It was a shot fired directly into the future of journalism. A provocation. A test. A warning. Let’s take a closer look at Il Foglio and its controversial attempt at journalism.

Il Foglio's AI Experiment: Gimmick or Glimpse of Tomorrow?

Founded in Milan and directed by Claudio Cerasa, the Italian paper Il Foglio has never shied away from intellectual confrontation. Moreover, known for long-form cultural reviews and its conservative-liberal stance, Il Foglio created the world's most significant online impact when it decided to hand the pen (or keyboard) to the machines.

In an edition branded "l'esperienza con l'IA," the newsroom handed over its workflows to a generative AI system. The AI wasn’t merely an assistant in publishing in Il Foglio; it was the journalist, the editor, the critic. From cinema to geopolitics, this AI's journal spoke about topics with structured precision but raised an unsettling question: does precision equal perspective?

According to Adnkronos, this wasn’t a quiet trial. It was about confronting what news could become and its effect on society. If readers nationwide accept content that’s clean, clear, but empty of soul, what’s left of the fourth estate?

The Shockwave: Applause, Alarm, and a Whole Lot of Questions

After Italy's popular magazine Il Foglio produced a series of articles entirely generated and updated by AI, the circulation of controversial opinions started within the month.

Some called it revolutionary. Others called it dangerous. Il Foglio’s L'intelligenza artificiale issue sent a tremor through Italy’s media scene and beyond; it was on the cover of every magazine from New York to Berlin. Writers questioned whether this signaled the slow disappearance of their profession. Tech leaders applauded the boldness. And readers? Many didn’t notice until they were told.

The AI’s writing style was fast, fluent, and eerily competent. But that was part of the problem. It lacked the tension, the irony, the flaws that make a story real. Critics pointed out that while the AI assistant could translate, answer, and recommend, it couldn’t provoke. It didn’t challenge. It didn’t ask, “But what if we’re wrong?”

There were ethical alarms, too. Who is responsible when a machine misreports? What does transparency look like in a newsroom run by lines of code? And can geometric deep learning ever speak to what’s naturale, to what’s human?

Rewriting the Rules: Where News Goes From Here

The Il Foglio experiment wasn’t just about output; it was about power. Who gets to shape the narrative? The machine that learns patterns, or the person who dares to break them?

Still, there are real lessons here. AI can assist. It can summarize. It can publish faster, process data, and support newsrooms stretched thin. Those studying Artificial Intelligence training courses in Barcelona often explore this exact tension: where automation helps, and where it must stop.

AI can improve the process, but shouldn’t define the product. It can draft, but not decide. The challenge is not to reject technology, but to guide it. To set ethical limits. To design it around values, not just metrics.

Most importantly, it is vital to make sure that what’s published still matters.

Our Experiment

We all know that AI has gone into all aspects of our lives and business, our markets, our schools, even our procurement technologies.

Il Foglio might have been onto something when it launched this project; but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Nevertheless, as an attempt to honour the spirit of modern Journalism, we asked AI to give us what it thought of this experiment, and here’s the exciting result:

“Nei mesi degli esperimenti di intelligenza artificiale, abbiamo capito una cosa semplice: un giornale può essere prodotto da dati, ma non può vivere senza cultura. Il direttore può usare l’AI per scrivere le pagine, ma solo l’uomo può guidare il senso. IlFoglio non ha sostituito i giornalisti: ha dimostrato che, tra le righe del codice, la notizia ha ancora bisogno di cuore.”

“In these months of artificial intelligence experiments, we’ve learned one simple thing: a newspaper can be produced from data, but it cannot live without culture. The editor may use AI to write the pages, but only humans can guide the meaning. Didn’t replace journalists—it proved that between the lines of code, the news still needs a heart.”

Eventually: Journalism’s Future Isn’t Machine-Written. It’s Human-Driven.

This isn't the end of journalism. It’s just a rewrite. A messy, imperfect, and necessary rewrite.

What Il Foglio has done is peel back the curtain on something bigger than a one-off stunt. It showed us that AI’s presence in the newsroom isn’t speculative—it’s here. And it’s growing.

But people don’t read the news just to be informed. They read to understand, to question, to feel. Technology can offer speed. It can offer scale. But the truth? That still takes a human.

The machines can write. But only people can make it mean something.