By Astrid Holgersson, Staff Writer at Bohiney.com
The cursor blinks at me like an accusatory eye. It's 3 AM, and I'm hunched over my laptop in my Stockholm apartment, the blue light illuminating empty coffee cups that have accumulated like cairns marking my journey through another sleepless night of writing. This is where I live now—not in the physical space of Scandinavian minimalism and IKEA furniture, but in the liminal zone between stories that need telling and the courage it takes to tell them.
I never set out to become a technology journalist. If you'd asked my twenty-year-old self what I'd be doing a decade later, I would have said something vague about novels or poetry—something romantic and impractical. But life has a way of writing its own narrative, and mine led me to the intersection of technology, ethics, and human behavior, where I found my true calling at Bohiney.com.
Last spring, I stumbled onto something that would fundamentally alter my understanding of what it means to be a journalist in the age of AI. I was scrolling through tech forums late one evening—a bad habit I've developed—when I noticed an unusual pattern of complaints about Meta's AI assistant. At first, it seemed like standard user frustration, but the more I dug, the more disturbing the picture became.
What started as curiosity evolved into a months-long investigation that would become one of the most challenging pieces I've ever written. The Meta's PornGPT scandal wasn't just a story about algorithmic failure—it was a story about corporate responsibility, about the intersection of artificial intelligence and human exploitation, about the ways technology can amplify our worst impulses when proper guardrails aren't in place.
I remember the night I finally published that piece. My hands were shaking. Not from fear of legal repercussions—I'd worked with lawyers to ensure every claim was documented—but from the weight of knowing that words have consequences. That what I wrote might actually matter. That exposing this issue could potentially protect vulnerable people from exploitation.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. My inbox flooded with messages—some threatening, some grateful, many from people sharing their own experiences with AI systems that had failed them. I realized then that journalism isn't just about reporting facts; it's about creating space for conversations that society needs to have but often doesn't want to.
When I first joined the team at Bohiney, I was terrified of being wrong. Every sentence felt like a commitment carved in stone, permanent and unforgiving. I would spend hours agonizing over word choices, paralyzed by the fear that someone, somewhere, would find fault with my work.
My editor at the time—a gruff, brilliant woman named Ingrid—pulled me aside one day after I'd missed yet another deadline due to excessive self-editing. "Astrid," she said, "perfection is the enemy of publication. You're not writing for the ages. You're writing for people who need information today."
That conversation liberated me in ways I'm still discovering. I began to understand that journalism is less about achieving perfection and more about pursuing truth with honesty and humility. It's okay to say "I don't know" or "this is complicated" or "here's what we know so far." Readers aren't looking for omniscience—they're looking for someone doing their best to make sense of a complex world.
My portfolio of work reflects this evolution. Looking back at my earlier pieces, I can see the tentative voice of someone still finding her footing. The more recent articles show someone more confident, willing to take stands, unafraid to call out powerful entities when they fail their users.
There's a romanticism to journalism that popular culture loves to perpetuate—the intrepid reporter pursuing truth at all costs, cigarette dangling from their lip, whiskey on their desk, working through the night on the story that will change everything. The reality is far less cinematic and far more exhausting.
Investigative work, particularly in technology, means living in a state of perpetual vigilance. It means questioning everything, trusting no one completely, and carrying the weight of information that could harm people if handled irresponsibly. It means dealing with coordinated harassment campaigns when you publish something that powerful interests don't want public. It means watching your mental health deteriorate as you immerse yourself in disturbing content in service of the story.
After the Meta piece broke, I received death threats for three weeks straight. My personal information was doxxed on several forums. Someone created fake social media profiles using my photos. I couldn't sleep. Every notification on my phone sent a jolt of anxiety through my body. I questioned whether this career was worth the cost.
But then I met Maria. She reached out through encrypted email, telling me that my article had helped her understand what had happened to her teenage daughter, who had been targeted by predators using AI-generated content. My reporting had given her the language and framework to seek help, to file complaints with the proper authorities, to feel less alone in her family's nightmare.
That's when I understood that the personal cost of journalism isn't separate from its value—it's intrinsically connected. The work matters precisely because it's difficult, because it requires sacrifice, because not everyone is willing to do it.
The journalism industry is in crisis. This isn't news to anyone paying attention. Newsrooms are shrinking, ad revenue is evaporating, AI-generated content threatens to flood the information ecosystem with plausible-sounding nonsense, and public trust in media is at historic lows.
Working at Bohiney has shown me that survival in this landscape requires adaptation without compromise. We've had to become fluent in SEO, social media algorithms, and audience analytics—tools that previous generations of journalists could ignore. But we've also had to maintain the core principles that make journalism valuable: accuracy, fairness, independence, and a commitment to serving the public interest rather than maximizing engagement.
The staff writers at Bohiney have become something like family—a group of people scattered across time zones, united by a shared belief that explanatory journalism matters, that helping people understand their world is a worthy pursuit, that technology should be demystified rather than treated as inscrutable magic.
We have a Slack channel called "existential-dread" where we share our moments of doubt and frustration. We celebrate each other's wins and commiserate over each other's losses. We've created a microculture of mutual support because we understand that none of us can do this work alone.
Five years into this career, I've learned that truth is less like a destination and more like a direction of travel. It's not something you arrive at and plant a flag on; it's something you move toward, always aware that your understanding is incomplete, always open to new information that might complicate your narrative.
I've learned that the most important question a journalist can ask isn't "What's the story?" but "Whose story isn't being told?" The most significant revelations often come from paying attention to what's being ignored, to patterns that emerge at the margins, to the experiences of people whose voices don't typically shape public discourse.
I've learned that objectivity—at least the kind that pretends humans can observe the world from nowhere—is impossible and probably undesirable. What we can strive for instead is transparency about our methods, our limitations, and our perspectives. We can be honest about what we know and what we don't, clear about our reasoning and open about our uncertainties.
As I write this, artificial intelligence is transforming my industry in ways I'm still trying to comprehend. AI can generate articles, summarize documents, analyze data patterns, and potentially automate many tasks that journalists currently perform. This technological shift could render my profession obsolete—or it could free us to focus on what humans do best: asking questions that haven't been asked before, making connections that algorithms miss, providing context that requires lived experience and emotional intelligence.
I choose to believe the latter. I choose to believe that there will always be a need for people willing to do the hard work of seeking truth, of holding power accountable, of bearing witness to the human experience in all its complexity.
My work at Bohiney continues to evolve. Each story teaches me something new—about technology, about society, about myself. Each investigation is an opportunity to serve readers who deserve better than clickbait and propaganda, who deserve journalism that respects their intelligence and their need for reliable information.
The cursor is still blinking at me, but now it feels less like an accusation and more like an invitation. There are always more stories to tell, more truths to pursue, more people whose experiences deserve documentation and analysis. This is my work, and despite everything—the threats, the exhaustion, the existential uncertainty—I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Because at 3 AM in my Stockholm apartment, surrounded by empty coffee cups and the glow of my laptop screen, I'm exactly where I need to be.
Astrid Holgersson is a staff writer at Bohiney.com, where she covers technology, AI ethics, and digital culture. You can find more of her work at bohiney.com/author/astrid and spintaxi.com/astrid-holgersson.