Helena High Students Share Views on AI and Journalism Practices

Madelyn Heath of MTN visited Mr. Scruggs’ journalism class at Helena High for a mini town hall during News Literacy Week, sparking a conversation about how artificial intelligence is reshaping reporting and public trust. The session, which lasted over an hour and was posted by KPAX-TV on Feb 2, 2026, left students weighing the promise of new tools against risks to accuracy that matter for community information and public health messaging.

Helena High blocks student access to AI on school computers, but students were allowed in class to run an exercise using ChatGPT to generate an article about an event that had not yet occurred. The demonstration prompted skepticism. Brayden Spurzem, a Helena High sophomore, said, “I get kind of concerned with the quantity over quality piece because it feels like AI just crams a lot of untrue information into a large volume of sources.” He added, “If this hasn’t even happened yet and AI can just generate for you, I question its accuracy.”

Concerns about who believes AI output and how it could be used to mislead came through strongly. Helena High junior Cora Jeffers warned, “My biggest concern is people believing it and AI just being used for the wrong reasons, like false news.” Jeffers also expressed some relief after the session: “It is a little bit more comforting to know they might not use AI as much as I thought they would.”

Students also raised unease about opinion-shaping by algorithms. An unattributed student line in the published video captured that worry bluntly: “instead of just one opinion kind of narrate AI to what you want to believe and I think that's dangerous.” Those themes connect directly to local public health and safety: when misinformation circulates quickly, it can undermine vaccine campaigns, emergency notices, and the work of Lewis and Clark County health officials who depend on clear, reliable channels to reach residents.

The classroom exchange also included a statement about newsroom practice. MTN told students that “At the Montana Television Network, all content is written by a journalist. Some reporters do use AI to assist their workflow, such as formatting their web articles so that they are grammatically correct.” That distinction matters in a county where many residents still rely on regional broadcast and local outlets for timely health and safety updates.

What this means for Helena is practical. Newsrooms should be explicit about when and how they use AI so residents can judge the provenance of information. Schools and community organizations can build on exercises like the Helena High demonstration to teach fact-checking skills tied to public health literacy. For parents, students, and neighbors, the conversation underscores that media literacy is now also a public health tool: verify sources, demand transparency from outlets, and support local journalism that prioritizes accuracy.