Honesty
/How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people. -Edward Beson
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
How to Know Someone is Still Young
/If they talk about the past and they talk about all the things that happened that they did, they've gotten old. If they think about their dreams, their aspirations, what they're still looking forward to — they're young." -Ric Elias
212 Movies about Journalism
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(or a little about journalism)
2024
Black Box Diaries - A Japanese journalist investigates her own rape leading to accusations against a prominent TV executive, triggering Japan’s #MeToo movement. Personal and compelling.
Civil War - In a dystopian future America, a team of military-embedded journalists race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.
Impulse - A journalist uncovers a cult and shadow government. Low production, poor acting, and not much in the way of journalism.
Lee - (Kate Winslet) A fashion model becomes an acclaimed war correspondent during World War II. Based on a true story. Conventional and melodramatic but well-acted.
Monolith - A disgraced Australian journalist starts a podcast and follows a conspiracy theory that leads to herself. A slow-burn sci-fi flick set in one location.
Players - A group of single Brooklyn reporters spend their evenings scheming for short-lived hookups until one of them falls for one of his targets. Predictable.
2023
Boston Strangler - Two underestimated female journalists battle sexism as they are the first to connect the 1960s Boston Strangler murders.
Freelance - An ex-special forces operative hired to protect a journalist becomes involved in a coup in South America.
The Good Mother - (Hilary Swank) A journalist works with her murdered son’s pregnant girlfriend Paige to track down the killers. A talented cast with an underwhelming script.
Line of Fire (aka Darklands) - An Australian blogger and amateur journalist pursues her relentlessly for an interview, unwittingly endangering her family.
Origins - The personal and professional journey of Pulitzer Prize-winner Isabel Wilkerson
The Night Doctrine - When an Afghan journalist tries to discover who murdered her family 30 years ago, she uncover hundreds of civilians killed in a secretive American-backed program. This short animated documentary was produced by ProPublica.
The Test
/Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't. -Richard Bach
What Would You Do?
/You have applied for a job and the interviewer asks you a question that lands like a bombshell: do you have a boyfriend? Then another: do people find you desirable? And a third: do you think it is important for women to wear bras to work? If you are a woman you probably know what you would do. Perhaps you would refuse to answer, complain or walk out. You would certainly be furious.
This is how 197 female American undergraduates, asked to imagine such an interview, said they would react. But they—and probably you—were wrong. The psychologists who asked them, Marianne LaFrance and Julie Woodzicka, orchestrated a real-life version of this ordeal, by advertising for a research assistant and arranging for male accomplices to interview the first 50 women who applied.
Half were randomly chosen to be asked those three questions. Not one refused to answer, let alone complained or walked out. When they were asked afterwards (and offered the chance to apply for a real job), they said they had felt not anger, but fear.
Videos of the interviews showed how much this supposedly minor sexual harassment threw the women off their stride. They plastered on fake smiles.
In a final twist, the researchers showed clips of the videos to male MBA students. Fake smiles are fairly easy to tell from real ones: they involve fewer facial muscles and do not crinkle the corners of the eyes. But many of the men saw the women as amused, even flirtatious.
9 Free Webinars This Week about Media, AI, & Journalism
/Tue, Jan 7 - 5 Things you should do in 2025 to leverage AI for Learning Speaker
What: In this forward-looking session, you'll gain actionable insights on five critical steps to harness AI's power for learning; Build a Personalized Learning Coach with LLMs; Implement Adaptive Content Engagement Systems; Create Immersive AI-Driven Simulations for Skill Development; Establish an AI Ethics Framework for Learning Initiatives Integrate AI-Enhanced Performance Support Tools
Who: Margie Meacham Founder and Chief Freedom Officer, Learningtogo.ai
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: OpenSesame
Tue, Jan 7 - Social Media Boot Camp, part 1
What: Why social media is critical for your organization. The fundamentals of thought leadership Content pillars – what they are and how to use them. Top 6 social media platforms to help you create awareness for your organization. 12 key metrics to measure 5 tips for optimizing your social media presence.
Who: Kiersten Hill, Firespring
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Firespring
Tue, Jan 7 - The AI Metadata Assistant in the Metadata Editor
What: The AI Metadata Assistant uses a Large Language Model generative AI to process information about a library resource, and suggest relevant metadata to the cataloger to help make the cataloging process quicker and more efficient. The cataloger can then review the suggested data and accept, correct or dismiss it, as well as add more complex, expert metadata and library-specific metadata.
Who: Yoel Kortick, Senior Librarian, Ex Libris; Lili Daie, Product Manager Ex Libris
When: 10 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: PQ Training Ops
Tue, Jan 7 - Exploring AI’s Impact on California Publishers
What: This interactive webinar will set the stage for the series, fostering conversation and collaboration among California publishers about the impact of AI on our industry.
When: 12 pm, Pacific
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: California News Publishers Association
Wed, Jan 8 - 2025 B2B Digital Marketing Predictions & Resolutions
What: Insights from marketing leaders about what we should expect to encounter in 2025.
Who: Lou Cohen Director, Digital Marketing & Demand Generation Leader, Digital Marketing Professor NYU, Yeshiva University, & CUNY Baruch College
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Association of National Advertisers
Wed, Jan 8 - Social Media Boot Camp, part 2
What: Use social media to connect with constituents. Monitor conversations to stay ahead of the curve. Get people to advocate on your behalf. Navigate social media advertising and understand when to use it.
Who: Kiersten Hill, Firespring
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Firespring
Thu, Jan 9 - Generative AI And Academic Integrity: Some Considerations
What: Ways that you can limit dishonest use of these tools, whether in academic writing, computer code assignments, or other fields. We will discuss various digital tools and pedagogical techniques that have been proposed to combat dishonest behavior with AI, and we will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each.
When: 11 am, Central
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free (with a UChicago ID)
Sponsor: University of Chicago
Thu, Jan 9 - The Future of Learning: AI-Driven Personalization Speaker
What: Through real-world examples and research, attendees will gain actionable insights into measuring learner states, leveraging AI’s predictive capabilities, and designing content for an AI-enabled ecosystem. Learn how to embrace emerging technologies like chatbots as one-on-one tutors and prepare for the future of instructional design.
Who: Josh Cavalier Founder, JoshCavalier.ai
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Training Magazine Network
Thu, Jan 9 - Using AI Tools To Promote Meaningful Learning
What: The objectives of this one-hour workshop are to consider the impact AI tools are having or stand to have on teaching and learning in your various fields of study; articulate your vision for AI’s role in your teaching; and explore ways you might integrate AI into meaningful learning activities. We’ll review some best practices and some suggestions for using AI as part of your learning environment that have resulted from the larger pedagogical conversation thus far.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free (with a UChicago ID)
Sponsor: University of Chicago
Luck
/I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work the more I seem to have of it. (attributed to Thomas Jefferson but not found in his writings)
Making a Mistake
/He who never made a mistake never made a discovery. -Samuel Smiles
Chatbots & Health Care
/It’s not that chatbots can’t do some impressive things in health care. The problem is that they’re designed to respond with an “average” answer, says Rachel Draelos, a physician and computer scientist who founded the health tech start-up Cydoc. “But nobody’s an average. What makes medicine really interesting is that every patient is an individual and needs to be treated that way.” - Washington Post
Laughter and Madness
/He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. (the opening line of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini)
In Five Years
/If you kept going the way you are now, who would you be in five years? Instead of focusing on what you’ll become, in terms of work and social success, think about what you are learning and what kind of person you are turning into.
23 Articles from December about AI & Data Science
/AI Definitions: Artificial General Intelligence
Agentic AI cannot survive without data scientists
AI Definitions: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Agentic AI will require data scientists to frame problems, not just solve them
These mistakes can ruin your machine learning project
How to Clean Your Data for Your Real-Life Data Science Projects
An AI-enabled weapon systems center and create a working group under the U.S. Cyber Command
Geospatial analysis advances as AI uses auditory prompts to create relevant images
What Is Agentic AI, and How Will It Change Work?
AI Definitions: Natural language processing
Scaling laws have shaped AI’s past, but they no longer define its future
The US Central Command is employing large language models for some of its processes
Inducing anxiety in large language models can produce bias
Military takes on question of when AI is the right thing to do
Air Force continues to expand its version of ChatGPT following summer launch
A 'Not-to-Do List'
/New Year's Eve is time to resolve what you want in the year ahead. Rather than creating a list of resolutions, Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, sits down and does the opposite. Before setting down any strategic objectives, he comes up with three corresponding things to stop doing. So if he decided he wanted to read more, he first determined to unplug the TV.
He suggests you ask yourself what you're:
a) passionate about
b) good at
c) able to make a living doing.
Then consider how you're spending time. How much of it falls outside those three factors? If the answer is most of it, a not-to-do list could be a valuable tool.
AI Definitions: Artificial General Intelligence
/Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – A machine that has the capacity to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can. Rather than focusing on solving specific problems (like Deep Blue, which was good at chess), this type of AI has broader uses and may possess seemingly human-level intelligence to learn and adapt. Most experts say AGI is at least decades away. Beyond AGI lies the more speculative goal of "sentient AI," where the programs become aware of their existence with feelings and desires.
More AI definitions here
The daily battle
/The daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. -Deirdre Sullivan
Wonder
/I’m very concerned that our society is much more concerned with information than wonder, in noise rather than silence. How do we encourage reflection? -Mister Rodgers
17 Articles about AI & Legal Issues
/Pending copyright-infringement lawsuits could derail AI’s economic potential – Wall Street Journal
AI and the Law – University of Chicago
To Whom Does the World Belong? The battle over copyright in the age of ChatGPT. – Boston Review
Agentic AI in legal: What it is and why it may appear in law firms soon – Reuters
Recent Decisions on Whether AI Training Violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – JD Supra
An AI companion suggested he kill his parents. Now his mom is suing. – Washington Post
Denying Copyright for AI-Assisted Art Threatens Innovation – Data Innovation
Law firm use of data scientists grows alongside AI’s challenges – Roll Call
Judge Rules in Favor of School That Gave Student a Bad Grade for Using AI – Gizmodo
Stanford Professor Accused of Using AI to Write Expert Testimony Criticizing Deepfakes – Gizmodo
Navigating legal drafting: A how-to guide for law firms using AI-powered tools – Reuters
Google unveils invisible ‘watermark’ for AI-generated text – Nature
Lawsuit claims Character.AI is responsible for teen's suicide – NBC
Parents sue after student disciplined for using AI on school project in Massachusetts - CBS Boston
Five Canadian news media outlets sue OpenAI for copyright breach – Al Jazeera
The role of legal teams in creating AI ethics guardrails – Legal Dive
Writers Guild Calls on Studios to Take “Immediate Legal Action” Against AI Companies – Hollywood Reporter
AI Writing & Old Language
/Because of copyright restrictions, the training data sets for LLMs are largely restricted to old texts from the early twentieth century. As a result, some researchers have used the frequency of certain words that were popular then but have since fallen out of common parlance as evidence of generative AI. from The-Scientist
Will Human-generated Content Maintain its Value?
/Multiple times daily, I find myself silently asking, Did you really write this or did AI? Just like handwritten notes have decreased over time, human-generated content will also decrease over time, but it will maintain its value—because we hunger to be heard and cared for by another human. However, unlike handwritten notes, it will be harder to distinguish between AI-generated content and human-generated content. - Tara Chklovski writing in Fast Company
AI Definitions: Hallucinations
/*Hallucinations – When an AI provides responses that are inaccurate or not based on facts. Generative AI models are designed to generate data that is realistic or distributionally equivalent to the training data and yet different from the actual data used for training. This is why they are better at brainstorming than reflecting the real world and why they should not be treated as sources of truth or factual knowledge. Generative AI models can answer some questions correctly, but this is not what they are designed and trained to do. However, hallucinating AIs can be very useful to researchers by giving scientists innovative insights, which speeds up the scientific process.
More AI definitions here