Intrepid journalists such as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame long have set the standard for great reporting. Superb writers such as Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Maureen Dowd or tough editors like Robert C. Maynard and Robert Montemayor similarly represent the quintessence of journalistic storytelling excellence. And until recently, to note that all of these journalists are human beings would have been stating the obvious, if not even laughable. In the 21st century, however, the assumption that journalists must be human beings, and no more than human, might no longer hold, and to accept that premise could be increasingly dubious. Few would be laughing about it … although many might be justifiably concerned about journalistic quality in an AI-infused future news ecosystem. Whether a digital hybrid that blends the human and AI can yield a great journalist, or great journalism, is a question this chapter considers.

Before the invention of the computer and the advent of the Internet, it is unlikely anyone could have envisioned journalism without human reporters, writers, and editors. But in the 21st century, digital journalists in the form of news bots and algorithms are increasingly working alongside, in support of, and in some cases possibly in place of human journalists. Although human journalists will likely play a key role in the Metaverse, digital journalists, or journalists in all-digital form or in close concert with their human counterparts, likely will become increasingly common and vital to the Metaverse news industry, for profit or not. News avatars that blend human critical thinking, perhaps the most fundamental skill of any human journalist, with the most well-designed AI are on the event horizon of the Metaverse.

In the Metaverse, people generally exist in the form of digital avatars. Such avatars are the digital representation of a person, a character, inside a computer environment, or a virtual world including the Metaverse. As such, an avatar in cyberspace is in essence a digital twin of a real-world person. The term avatar is Hindu in origin and is the incarnation of a Hindu deity (Lochtefeld, 2002).