Leave the Reporting to . . .?


Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Julie Gerstein and Margaret Sullivan, 6/26/25

Headline:  “Can AI Tools Meet Journalistic Standards?

Subhead:  “So far, the results are spotty.”

“Tech companies promise that AI tools can do more with less—so perhaps they can help news outlets survive declining subscription sales and evaporating advertising revenue. Certainly, AI is being used effectively by some journalists to crunch numbers at lightning speed and make sense of vast databases. . .”

But more than two years after the public release of large language models (LLMs), the promise that the media industry might benefit from AI seems unlikely to bear out, or at least not fully. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/can-ai-tools-meet-journalistic-standards.php

– – – – –

Article in Poynter by Jennifer Orsi, 6/26/25

Headline:  “A lot has changed since we created AI ethics guidelines for newsrooms. Here’s what you need to know now”

Subhead:  “We’ve updated Poynter’s ‘starter kit’ for newsrooms to build AI policies,
including sections for visual journalists and product teams”

“More than a year ago, the Poynter Institute published a ‘starter kit’ for newsrooms to create their own ethics policies for using artificial intelligence in their journalism. AI use in newsrooms has grown swiftly since then — and gotten more complex — and the team behind the starter kit has just published a new update, adding more information for visual journalism and for those developing products in newsrooms. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/a-lot-has-changed-since-we-created-ai-ethics-guidelines-for-newsrooms-heres-what-you-need-to-know-now/

 

 

Bot Journalists are Here!


Article in Poynter by J.J. Thomson, et al, 4/17/25

Headline:  “What news audiences can teach journalists about artificial intelligence”

Subhead:  “Generative AI is changing journalism. Audiences have clear expectations for how it’s used.”

“As generative artificial intelligence shows up in more corners of public and private life, newsrooms should be talking with their staff about how they’re using it — and keeping audiences in the loop as those practices shift. Just as important: listening to how audiences experience and react to AI in journalism to help guide the industry forward. . .”

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/want-news-readers-want-ai/

 

Bots of Media Fun


Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 4/1/125

Headline:  Bloomberg and the Bots”

Subhead:  Bloomberg insists its journalists have “full control” over its error-prone A.I. bot—but staffers tell Status they can’t stop it from publishing errors.”

“A few days ago, The New York Times published a remarkable story: Bloomberg News, one of the most powerful forces in business journalism, had introduced factual errors into at least three dozen article pages using its new “takeaways” carousel. The recently introduced artificial intelligence feature, which has been prominently affixed to the top of most stories, was designed to spotlight key points in its reporting.

“In a statement to The Times, a Bloomberg spokesperson moved to dismiss concerns about the A.I. carousel, telling reporter Katie Robertson that it is “transparent when stories are updated or corrected.” But it was what the spokesperson said next that caught the attention of reporters inside the Bloomberg newsroom.

“Journalists have full control over whether a summary appears—both before and after publication—and can remove any that don’t meet our standards,” the Bloomberg spokesperson asserted to The Times. . .”

https://www.status.news/p/bloomberg-news-ai-summaries

 

Pods of Media-Fun


Article in The Verge by Tina Nguyen, 3/27/25

Headline:  “Trump White House invites a bloc of conservative podcasters as a jab at legacy media”

Subhead:  ” ‘Podcast Row’ is going to be a recurring event.”

On Thursday, several conservative podcasters were invited to the White House to participate in Podcast Row, an event meant to engage alternative media by granting them hours of unprecedented access to senior Trump Administration officials. The White House intends to make this a recurring event.

“Bringing in new media outlets has obviously been a priority of this administration and we will explore all options that allow us to reach as many Americans as possible,” Kaelan Dorr, White House Deputy Communications Director, told The Verge.

According to NewsNation correspondent Libbey Dean, administration attendees included Cabinet and Cabinet-level officials . . .  Online figures streaming from the room included Natalie Winters from Bannon’s War Room, Canadian YouTuber David Freiheit, and podcaster Breanna Morello.

https://www.theverge.com/policy/637890/trump-white-house-podcast-row

Tech-Lords Inform Us Now


Podcast in The Nation by Paris Marx, 2/13/25

Headline: “The Tech Oligarchy’s Campaign Against the Media”

Subhead: “On this episode of Podcast ‘Tech Won’t Save Us’, Eoin Higgins on tech billionaires’ effect on the media ecosystem.”

“On this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, we’re joined by Eoin Higgins to discuss how tech billionaires changed the media ecosystem and made it profitable for influential voices to shift to the political right.

“Eoin Higgins is a journalist and the author of Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left.”

https://www.thenation.com/podcast/archive/the-tech-oligarchys-campaign-against-the-media/

When You Let A.I. Edit Your News . . .


Article in Slashdot by BeauHD, 2/12/25

Headline:  “AI Summaries Turn Real News Into Nonsense, BBC Finds”

“A BBC study published yesterday  found that AI news summarization tools frequently generate inaccurate or misleading summaries, with 51% of responses containing significant issues.

“The Register reports: The research focused on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity assistants, assessing their ability to provide ‘accurate responses to questions about the news; and if their answers faithfully represented BBC news stories used as sources.’ The assistants were granted access to the BBC website for the duration of the research and asked 100 questions about the news, being prompted to draw from BBC News articles as sources where possible. . .  Overall:

– 51 percent of all AI answers to questions about the news were judged to have significant issues of some form.
– 19 percent of AI answers which cited BBC content introduced factual errors — incorrect factual statements, numbers, and dates.
– 13 percent of the quotes sourced from BBC articles were either altered from the original source or not present in the article cited.”

https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/02/12/2139233/ai-summaries-turn-real-news-into-nonsense-bbc-finds

Media Group in India Sues OpenAI


Posted in Slashdot by msmash on Tuesday 1/19/024

Headline:  “Indian News Agency Sues OpenAI Alleging Copyright Infringement (techcrunch.com)”

“One of India’s largest news agencies, Asian News International, has sued OpenAI in a case that could set a precedent for how AI companies use copyrighted news content in the world’s most populous nation.

“From a report: Asian News International filed a 287-page lawsuit in the Delhi High Court on Monday, alleging the AI company illegally used its content to train its AI models and generated false information attributed to the news agency. The case marks the first time an Indian media organization has taken legal action against OpenAI over copyright claims.”

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/11/19/1718229/indian-news-agency-sues-openai-alleging-copyright-infringement

Media Giants Care More for Kids Than Money, Right?

Article by April Rubin in Axios, 10/5/24

Headline: “States target social media companies over kids’ health, safety as Congress hesitates”

“Attorneys general of three states in less than a week revealed separate lawsuits against social media giants for their platforms’ alleged harmful effects on children, including sextortion, addiction and privacy violations.”

“. . . State attorneys general, most recently, sued TikTok, Snap and YouTube, alleging culpability in risks to children’s safety or wellbeing.”

https://www.axios.com/2024/10/05/state-lawsuits-social-media-children-harm-addiction

Traditional Media Sink or Swim?

Article in the New York Times By Farah Nayeri, 9/29/24

Headline: “As Mainstream Media Faces Unprecedented Challenges, Can It Save Itself?”

Subhead: “A panel at the Athens Democracy Forum explores how and whether traditional news organizations can regain the influence and trust that once defined them”

“On the first day of the fall semester at Boston University, Michelle Amazeen, an associate professor of mass communication, asked her graduate students to fill out a questionnaire listing their favorite movie, band, book and news source. She was in for a surprise.

“Next to news source, many of her 16 students left a blank. Several mentioned TikTok, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). One named a mainstream publication (The New York Times) as their source of news and information.

“By and large, young adults are getting their news, if they get it at all, from social media,” Ms. Amazeen said. As far as they’re concerned, “social media is exciting and it’s accessible,” because there’s little effort or expense required: just a scroll down a smartphone screen.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/world/democracy-media-challenges.html

Media Voter-Machine Fraud Claims, What Happened?

Article on NPR by Maddy Lauria & David Folkenflik, 9/26/24

Headline: “Voting-tech company settles with right-wing network over false election claims”

“Once more, a voting tech company has settled its defamation lawsuit over false allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election before the start of trial — in this instance, Smartmatic USA’s suit against the conservative network Newsmax.”

“. . . ‘Lying to the American people has consequences,’ the company’s statement said. ‘Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable.’ ”

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/26/nx-s1-5130183/newsmax-smartmatic-settlement-defamation-election-lawsuit