This is the age of subjective journalism. It may sound like an odd declaration, but in a world where objectivity has been battered and bent in the open media, the only way to arrive at the truth may now be through a subjective lens used to defend an objective cause.
Paradoxical as it seems, objectivity today must be rescued by its supposed opposite—subjectivity. We are being pushed to reassess everything we see and hear. Artificial intelligence now produces content that looks real, sounds credible, and feels familiar even when it has no grounding in reality. And so the anchor to truth must come from what I earlier described as “the other side.” What is this side? It is the world of lived, human reality Andrea agenda —the corporate sector, politics, public institutions, the communities we inhabit—all of which now stand under siege from weaponised narratives and synthetic signals.
The Collapse of Trust
The threat is not merely the creation of fake news that resembles the real. More dangerous is the rising belief among us humans that all news is fake. When citizens reach this breaking point of distrust, belief systems decay or retreat into narrow tribal bubbles. Truth is no longer judged by logic, evidence, or scientific reasoning. Perception overtakes fact. And the empirical thinking that shaped 500 years of progress—from medicine to aerospace—faces suffocation under the weight of digitally manufactured illusions.
This is not science fiction anymore. The dystopia imagined by futurists has quietly arrived, not with a bang but with a seamless deepfake.
What do we do now?
We reclaim the narrative. Corporations, governments, and institutions must anchor themselves in verifiable reality and communicate directly, authentically, and transparently. They must find ways to convince audiences not merely of what is true, but why it is true—and why it matters. Because in an era where the artificial feels more convincing than the authentic, credibility cannot be assumed; it must be earned, repeatedly, through clarity, consistency, and intent.
AI-generated image of Smriti Mandhana (India's national women's cricket vice-captain) with Narendra Modi (Prime Minister of India) at her wedding function
The Erosion of Human Connectivity
This is the defining challenge of the AI-driven world. Human connectivity is slipping backwards. The narratives that once bound societies together are fracturing because many stories are now crafted by non-human intelligences. And contrary to popular belief, this intelligence has no agenda. That is precisely the danger. It assembles fragments of information into something that appears coherent, but is devoid of human purpose, accountability, or moral reasoning.
Our task is immense, but unavoidable: to restore trust; to reassert the primacy of human intention in communication; and to ensure that truth—anchored in reality—survives the age of intelligent fiction!
This is why corporate leaders, political actors, and state institutions urgently need specialists capable of protecting their message—professionals who craft communication from a human perspective, not an artificial one. We need thinkers who can apply reasoning, moral judgment, and an agenda aligned with the common good long before everything dissolves into a vast pool of information that means nothing.
The state, political parties, corporate entities, and civil society must now wrestle with a difficult question: How do we reclaim storytelling—our most ancient tool of social cohesion—before AI overwhelms it? They must rethink how narratives are built, how messages are delivered, and how truth can be upheld without the distortions of machine-generated misinformation.
AI-generated image of Smriti Mandhana (India's national women's cricket vice-captain) with Amitabh Bachchan (Indian actor) at her wedding function
The New Media Battlefield
Artificial intelligence has immense value. But AI without human intelligence is a contradiction in terms—a technological brilliance stripped of context, conscience, or consequence. Humanity must now be taught, deliberately and systematically, how to use AI for the benefit of humankind. Coexistence is inevitable, but whether we flourish or fail depends entirely on how well we manage this new force and bend it toward our advantage.
Returning to the media landscape—the most powerful influence on society today—we must recognise that information no longer flows from a single, regulated source like a newspaper with a human agenda. Handheld devices, algorithmic feeds, and an endless stream of social-media creators and influencers now shape public perception with minimal accountability. These voices operate outside the editorial standards and ethical frameworks that once governed mainstream media.
And so, the battle lines are drawn.
AI-generated image of Smriti Mandhana (India's national women's cricket vice-captain) with Virat Kohli (Former captain of the Indian national cricket team) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portuguese professional footballer) at her wedding function
The Last Line of Defence
AI-driven messaging is already overwhelming the system. It threatens to erode belief structures, destabilise political ideologies, weaken state institutions, and fracture civil society. In this storm, the role of the public relations and public affairs specialist becomes not merely relevant—but essential.
These specialists are the last human guardians of narrative integrity. Their task is to protect institutions by crafting messages grounded in the lived realities of citizens. They must deploy subjective insight—empathy, culture, context, intuition—against an entity that can generate content a million times faster than any human mind but with none of the human soul.
If the future is to remain recognisably human, these are the people who must hold the line: the communicators who understand not just how to construct a message, but why it matters and who it is meant to serve.
This article marks the beginning of a series exploring the shifting ways in which we perceive the world and communicate. It examines why a fundamental rethinking of communication is now essential—not only for the stability of society, but also for the resilience of the corporate sector and the credibility of political institutions.
