By Annabel Simon, Staff Writer

For a school full of Ivy League hopefuls, they sure have let us down this past week.

In the nine days since the story about the Cornell 7 was broke, I have felt nothing but disgust. If you have somehow stayed away from every social media app, news source and informed person you know, I will take the liberty of filling you in. This week, a story broke from the Cornell student paper about an alleged group rape that happened on campus in 2024. According to the testimony, an anonymous woman was drugged and raped by 7 men in a fraternity, and when found by another one of the boys, he snapped a photo and sent the words “free p—y” to the fraternity group chat. Out of the 57 of them, not a single one intervened or called the police.

While rape and sexual assault cases are among the worst and most disgusting acts of the human race, they are also frighteningly common. In fact, it was almost shocking, though not unwarranted, that this case made such national headlines. So what changed?

How the story broke. While most crime stories are reported on by local stations, this time, the fire both came from (and was reported about) from inside the house. On September 20th, the female editors of the Cornell student paper heard about the case and broke it. And before someone says that the gender of these editors doesn’t matter, please take a moment to remember the 57 male bystanders mentioned above. The most shocking (and dare I say revolutionary) part of all of this was that beyond just reporting, these women doxxed every single one of the names of the Cornell 7. For once, instead of the victim being exposed and humiliated for a crime in which she did nothing wrong, the rapists were the ones who got the punishment. All as a result of a group of student journalists who put their journalistic reputations at stake to report on what is important.

Yes, I’ve seen that statistic. And that one, and that one…and that one. Journalism is the most regretted major according to 87% of students. Over 54% of American adults read below a 6th grade level. Journalism is only a ticking time bomb until it is inevitably destroyed by AI. The worst part is, not a single one of these statistics is subjective. I cannot simply brush these off and act as if they do not apply to me. All of these statistics are terrifying. Obviously for career reasons, but also for the idea as to who will be there to break cases like this in the future? This was an incredibly important moment in the journalism world, but what will we do when AI scares away everyone who would’ve followed in these editors’ footsteps? AI regulation in journalism is not a selfish pursuit to enjoy jobs behind paywalls as it is to protect the virtue of honest investigative reporting.

In order for quite literally any career to survive, we will need restrictions on what the future of AI development will look like. We cannot have our Frankenstein be something so pathetic and cringeworthy as ChatGPT. Think I sounded pretentious about “protecting the virtue” of journalism?  AI hallucinations are up to 80%. As funny as the phrase sounds (picture those Coco delivery bots on shrooms), this is not a fun fact. This means AI not only has the ability to omit its sources anymore, it can also just straight up lie to you,  relying on statistical probability rather than source material. The need for journalism as a fact-checked truthful resource will only increase. Can you just imagine how bad it would be if the lying hallucinating robot was rapidly taking over honest fact checked news sources. With one of the researchers of Anthropic stepping down as of last month and the millions of gallons of water used to cool down AI data centers, it seems everyone is finally getting on the page of “this is looking kinda bad.”

Journalism is needed more now than ever. This instance only proves that. While this case is certainly unprecedented — and I wish to draw no attention away from that — without journalism, Jane Doe might not be getting the justice she deserves (and the alleged rapists their punishments). With the rise of AI only amplifying cases of sexual assault (everyday, I hear about another horrifying case of AI being used to create nude images of girls without their consent or get an update on the possible legalization of AI child pornography) it is a good reminder of why journalism, a field literally built on exposing the truth, will still have a place in our world for a very long time. AI certainly threatens journalism, but journalism threatens AI right back.

With all of the journalism solidarity right now, specifically in standing with the Cornell editors, I am hopeful for the future of journalism. Perhaps a show of strength in a community is enough to remind everyone of journalism’s place in the world. While I am not so naive as to assume that this case will banish AI from the writing world forever, it brings me joy that finally there is a situation that instead of filling me with existential doom, I think of the famous Margaret Mead quote. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”