11 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media

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Tue, Oct 13 - Less Data, Less Risk: How to Safely Manage Your Nonprofit's Data in the Age of AI

What: A conversational session designed to help you confidently clear the digital clutter. We'll walk through a simple, step-by-step approach—assess, govern, then adopt—to help you figure out exactly what data you need to keep and what you can safely stop storing. You'll leave with practical examples tailored to different nonprofit roles and the exact blueprint to create a simple "data asset inventory" with your team this month.

Who: Angie Gelinas, The Nonprofit Chamber; Christa Hill, Tacit Edgenuity.

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: TechSoup

More Info

 

Tue, Oct 13 - AI for Small Business: Getting Started

What: An introductory seminar for small business owners who want to better understand how AI can support their business.

Who: Ken and Kristie Healy, PMF Industries Inc.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: Small Business Development Center, Penn State

More Info

 

Tue, Oct 13 - Is Your AI Trustworthy?

What: Learn how agencies can establish trusted data foundations that improve AI accuracy, transparency, and accountability. Experts will share practical strategies for creating a single source of truth that supports responsible AI adoption, stronger governance, and better mission outcomes.

Who: Natalie Buda Smith, Director of Digital Strategy (Artificial Intelligence and Innovation), Library of Congress; Jerred Edgar, Chief Information Security & Operations Officer, Idaho; Ryan Palmer,  Architecture Lead for AI Services, General Services Administration; Brian “Stretch” Meyer, Federal Field CTO, Axonius Federal Systems.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: govloop

More Info

 

Wed, Oct 14 - AI in Medical Writing: How Far Can You Go with AI? 

What: This session explores where AI can support medical researchers and writers—and where human oversight remains essential.  

Who: Hami Lee, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of NeuroPsychiatry, Dongguk University Hospital; Vasundara BN, Project Manager, Cactus Communications.

When: 3 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: Editage

More Info

 

Wed, Oct 14 - Six Data Requirements to Get Your AI Agents from Demo to Production

What: We will walk through the six architectural requirements that distinguish AI systems stuck in the pilot phase from those that are operating reliably at scale: semantic clarity, entity resolution and relationships, temporal awareness, auditability and governance, agentic integration, and unified persistence. Each requirement is grounded in real production patterns, including how financial services and clinical research organizations have used a contextual data layer to compress manual work that once took weeks into minutes.

Who: Ravi Marwaha, COO and Chief Product & Technology Officer, Arango.

When: 11:30 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: The New Stack

More Info

 

Wed, Oct 14 - Facebook – Growing Your Page

What: Join us as we break down the strategies that help small businesses grow on Facebook

Who: Zachary Piotti, Marketing Consultant & Process Innovation.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: Small Business Development Center, Widener University

More Info

 

Wed, Oct 14 - Agentic AI, Demonstrated: The New Baseline for Learner Expectations

What: Come join us to watch how Adobe Learning Manager's Agentic AI architecture and tools actively: Create instructionally sound courses from scratch using natural conversation with AI. Build personalized learning journeys based on learner goals, skills, role, and proficiency Enable learners to practice real-world conversations and receive AI-powered coaching and feedback Deliver answers, recommendations, reporting insights and learning support through natural conversations Reduce manual admin effort with intelligent support for tasks, reporting, and operations.

Who: Allen Allen Partridge, Director of Digital Learning Evangelism, Adobe Digital Learning Solutions;  Justin Seeley, Learning Evangelist, Adobe; Sharath Ramaswamy, Principal eLearning Evangelist, Adobe;  Alistair Lee, Principal Evangelist, Adobe.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: Adobe Learning Manager

More Info

 

Thu, Oct 15 - Take the Mystery Out of AI: Practical Tools for Nonprofit Impact

What: You'll learn: Why embracing AI matters for nonprofits today; Real examples of AI in action at mission-driven organizations; Simple, everyday ways to start using AI in your daily work; How to move past the hype and confusion to practical application.

Who: Wayne Elsey, founder and CEO of Elsey Enterprises.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: TechSoup

More Info

 

Thu, Oct 15 - Practical Podcasting for Small Newsrooms: Turning Local Reporting into Audio That Builds Audience

What: Learn how to launch a podcast without a dedicated audio team, choose affordable equipment and workflows, repurpose existing reporting into compelling audio stories, and create a format that strengthens audience loyalty and reaches new listeners.

Who: Justin Brady, host of The Justin Brady Show.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: $35                                                    

Sponsor: iMediaCampus

More Info

 

Thu, Oct 15 - Ways to Help Avoid Fraud & Scams

What: Learn how keeping organized can help keep you safe, how to spot common scams and help protect yourself, and what to do if you or a loved one is impacted by fraud or identify theft.

Who: Antonio Elias, JPMorganChase.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsors: JPMorganChase & National Association of Hispanic Journalists

More Info

 

Thu, Oct 15 - Virtual Safety Training on Risk Mitigation and Digital Security

What: Participants will learn how to assess and mitigate risks throughout an election assignment, including preparing for coverage at polling places, campaign events, and vote-counting locations; recognizing warning signs of political violence; and responding to coordinated misinformation and disinformation targeting their work. The session will also explore practical approaches to managing digital threats, from surveillance and device security to protecting sensitive information and communicating safely with sources.

Who: Hanaa Rifaey, Deputy Director, Online News Association.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: International Woman’s Media Foundation

More Info

23 (mostly free & one-hour) Journalism Courses about Newsgathering & Covering a Specific Beat

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28 Professional Journalism Organizations

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222 Movies about Journalism

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2025

News Without A Newsroom - A documentary about journalism's uncertain future in the digital age.

Opus - Satire about the relationship between celebrity worship and journalism.

Words of War - Based on a true story of a journalist's brave crusade, fighting for an independent voice in Putin's Russia.

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.

No Other Land - This film was made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective and shows the relationship that develops between a Palestinian activist and an Israeli journalist.

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.

See the entire list

Podcasts about Journalism

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The 404 Media Podcast —  A journalist-owned digital media company exploring the way technology is shaping–and is shaped by–our world. 

The Digiday Podcast — A weekly show about subscriptions, commerce, the modern newsroom, content creation, audio, streaming, and more.  

Freelancing for Journalists - How to approach freelancing, covering topics ranging from how to get started and what to include in pitches, to how to negotiate rates. Each episode includes guests on different career paths, and who have a variety of perspectives.    

IRE Radio Podcast (Investigative Reporters and Editors) — Behind the story with award-winning reporters, editors and producers to hear how they broke some big stories.

It's All Journalism — The series talks to working journalists about how they do their jobs, the latest trends in journalism, and the changing state of digital media. (not being updated) 

Journalism History — A scholarly journal covering the history of mass media.    

The Journalism Salute — A spotlight on interesting and important journalists and journalism organizations. 

The Kicker — This Columbia Journalism Review podcast explores serious and challenging topics related to journalism and media. (not being updated) 

Longform Podcast (longform.org) — A weekly conversation with a non-fiction writer on how they tell stories. (not being updated)  

Media Voices — Major media industry news each week from three experienced freelance journalists. The focus is on the business side of media and its impact on journalists’ work.

On the Media — Produced by WNYC radio, this is a weekly investigation into how the media shapes our worldview.  

Reveal (The Center for Investigative Reporting) — A look at CIR’s investigative reporting, focusing on real-world impact—from civil and criminal investigations to new laws and policies, better-informed conversations and community-driven solutions. 

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism — A discussion of the Institute's research on trends in media. Based at the University of Oxford, this think tank offers research on the future of journalism.   

The Tip Off — A behind the scenes look at standout investigative reporting from the journalists themselves. (not being updated) 

WriteLane (Tampa Bay Times and Poynter) — Some episodes explore a piece of the writing process: finding ideas, interviewing, seeking structure. Others dive deep into a single story, breaking down the how and why. Some include interviews with other journalists. (not being updated) 

Examples of older podcasts about journalists doing journalism: 

I'm Not A Monster (BBC Panorama and FRONTLINE PBS) — “How did an American family end up in the heart of the ISIS caliphate? Over four years, journalist Josh Baker unravels a dangerous story where nothing is as it seems.”   

The Other Latif (Radiolab)  — “How did this nerdy suburban Muslim kid come to be imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay?” 

The Canary | Washington Post Investigates —  “Two women and a shared refusal to stay silent. A seven-part podcast hosted by investigative reporter Amy Brittain.”

White Lies (NPR) — “In 1965, Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Alabama. Three men were tried and acquitted, but no one was ever held to account. Fifty years later, two journalists from Alabama return to the city where it happened, expose the lies that kept the murder from being solved and uncover a story about guilt and memory that says as much about America today as it does about the past.” 

The Line (Apple) — “Explore the impact of the forever wars on the U.S. Navy SEALs through the lens of the Eddie Gallagher case.”

The Lazarus Heist (BBC)  — “‘Almost a perfect crime.’ The hacking ring and an attempt to steal a billion dollars. Investigators blame North Korea. Pyongyang denies involvement. The story begins in Hollywood.” 

In the Dark (American Public Media) — “We investigate the case of Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Winona, Mississippi, who was tried six times for the same crime. Flowers spent more than 20 years fighting for his life while a white prosecutor spent that same time trying just as hard to execute him.”

25 Professional Journalism Organizations

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A Journalist’s AI 'Go Bag'

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"What should be in a journalist’s AI go bag? For starters, the one basic thing that should be in everyone’s bag, the AI prepper’s equivalent of a flashlight and bottled water: skill at using AI tools. It is not enough to use it as a slightly better Google; you need to keep abreast of the latest releases and spend time every week pushing both its capabilities and your own. Trying to make it do your job is table stakes. Try making it write a children’s book, or invent a new game, or solve cold fusion. As with any learning process, the outcome is less important than the effort, because the effort is how you learn not just what it can do, but what you could do with it." -Megan McArdle writing in The Washington Post

AI-generated Ratings for Opinion Pieces

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Some Los Angeles Times opinion pieces will now be published with an AI-generated rating of their political content, and an AI-generated list of alternative political views on that issue. The AI-generated tool “operates independently” from the paper’s human journalists, and “the AI content is not reviewed by journalists before it is published.” - The Guardian

23 Fake News Signals from the Writing

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Here are some tips for determining if a story is likely reliable. An organization does not need to tick off all these qualifiers in order to be considered authentic and accurate, but the more you see red flags pop up, the more a healthy skepticism is in order.

You’ll notice these are “tips” and not a checklist. Checklists can oversimply the nuances of discernment into black-and-white boxes.

1. ORIGINAL REPORTING. Does this article cite sources likely to know this information? Does the news organization have reporters attending news conferences in person, working in cities where the news is happening, and talking to key sources directly? Or does the organization have to rely on second-hand information from other sites?

2. LONE-WOLF REPORTING. Compare the information with other sites you trust. Are these sites reporting the same information? The site might have a scoop, but a lack of multiple independent accounts means it is more likely that the story is false. Sometimes lack of coverage is the result from writer and producer bias within a company or the result of the particular focus of the outlet (which may include not offending certain sponsors or other companies owned by the same parent company). Typically, you should expect more than one source reporting on an important topic or event. Plus, it’s always best to read multiple sources of information to get various viewpoints and media frames.

3. AP STYLE. Most legitimate news organizations will use the AP Stylebook as a writing guide (no Oxford comma, full name on the first reference and only last name thereafter, etc.). Some organizations have developed their own style guides (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.). Most news organizations use an in-house style guide (to deal with writing issues unique to the publication’s area of reporting).   

4. POOR GRAMMAR. When a writer makes obvious grammatical mistakes, they also may not have taken the time to ensure the article’s facts are accurate. 

5. ADJECTIVES & ADVERBS. Objective journalism avoids adjectives and adverbs. The more of them used in an article, the more you should question whether the writer’s goal is to inform you or to convince you of something.

6. BALANCE. Did the writer engage with anyone who disagreed with the gist of the article? Quality news organizations are looking for both sides—and sometimes, there are more sides than that. 

7. EXPERTS. Does the article quote not only more than one side in a dispute but experts as well? A he-said-she-said story without experts’ opinions in the field is weak reporting. When there’s only a single source for a news article, be hesitant to accept the information without further corroboration.

8. OBJECTIVE. Like the scientist aiming to discover the truth, having some bias does not mean a journalist cannot arrive at the truth through a tested and effective approach (as does the scientific method, despite the researcher’s bias). The complaint that “no one can really be objective” misses the point that it’s not the journalists themselves but the articles that need to be neutral. While bias websites can still post real news, carefully look at the specific evidence, they offer and see if reporting from other legit sites backs it up.

9. OPINION. Is the article part of an opinion section? Does the video feature a commentator? Commentary has a long history of having a part inside the pages of newspapers, but many readers confuse an editorial article with news reporting. The same can happen online or on TV news. There’s no need for an opinion piece to be neutral in its presentation. Just don’t confuse it with an unbiased news piece.           

10. GENERIC ENEMIES. Does the article focus on vague foes who are never specified? “The media,” “supporters of (insert name of politician),” “The right,” “The left,” “Washington,” etc. Good reporting doesn't make these kinds of generalizations.

11. DOXING. Doxing is making private information public in order to hurt a person or organization. If the writer suggests anything like doxing, run the other way.

12. EMBEDDED LINKS. Quality journalism values clarity over style. Links in the article to original source material show a commitment to transparency and allow readers to make up their own minds about its use. Sometimes bogus stories will cite official or official-sounding sources and even link back to them that do not back up the claims in the article. An article without links or quotes from identified sources should be suspect.

13. SPONSORED CONTENT. Some legit news organizations publish articles similar to what they usually publish as real news—only, in this case, an advertiser actually sponsors the material. The intention could be to provide legitimate information about a subject while at the same time promoting the advertiser's product. Sometimes referred to as native advertising, reputable publishers will identify the article as “sponsored content” or “paid partner content” in a prominent location. A precursor to sponsored content was advertorials—a combination of advertising and editorial opinion. These placements were ads disguised as editorial content. 

14. LOCAL REPORTING. If the story involved a particular locale, was local expertise included? Was the reporting conducted on the scene?

15. YOUR REACTION. Be sensitive to occasions when you become angry as you read an article. If you are outraged after reading something, the story may be written to manipulate your emotions. The more shocking and outrageous, the more work is necessary to confirm the information before passing it along.

16. PARTISAN APPEAL. If a story sounds big but appears only on hyperpartisan sites and seems designed for outrage, it could have significant flaws that stopped legitimate news outlets from covering it.

17. FIRSTHAND SOURCES. Use an article’s information to work back to original sources to verify what’s in the article. If the report references a lawsuit, it can often be found online through a Google search or third party like Scribd, CourtListener, or DocumentCloud. Or, if the article references something a company is doing, check that company’s website (or a government agency) to see if there is a news release about that topic or an announcement on a site like PR Newswire.    

18. MULTIPLE SOURCES. Use keywords from the article (unique terms such as someone’s name) that are likely to bring up the same topic from another source using Google News search. The information from each story can be compared. It is unusual for a single outlet to have exclusive information, especially after several days have passed since the article was posted. To avoid generic, unhelpful search results, use unique keywords in your search—like the name of an unfamous person who’s quoted in the story. 

19. TANTALIZING QUOTES. Search for a questionable quote by pasting the text (in quotation marks) into a search engine. If the exact phrasing doesn’t come up or if only a few small outlets have printed the outrageous quote (perhaps from a famous person or politician), then be skeptical about its authenticity. Look for the sentences before and after the quote that makes your blood boil. If the article fails to give them, that could be a warning sign. If the quote is taken out of context, the site (or writer) belongs on your naughty list.

20. SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. A social movement or political uproar can be manufactured artificially. Look for evidence that the people behind a petition or boycott are real people and the effort is organic. Social media posts shouldn’t come from obscure users or bots. There’s a difference between a few snarky tweets and an actual public outcry.

21. THE WRITERS CREDENTIALS. Does the writer possess specialized knowledge in an area, either advanced education or experience covering a particular beat? This is especially important for opinion pieces. A list of qualifications in a writer’s bio should inform the audience as to their expertise. If they are not knowledgeable about the topic, they rely on other sources. An article without quotes or information from experts raises red flags, especially if creators present themselves as experts when they’re actually enthusiasts. 

22. ODD WORDING. AI-created text lacks the ability to write in a way that sounds natural—for now. When word choices or sentence structures are odd, it could be the product of a computer. The same is true with repeatedly using the same words and phrases or writing that lacks emotion. These are signs of machine-generated text.

OpenAI’s GPT-2 Detector is a tool that help to identify whether text is likely AI generated. While AI writing tools are not useful for reliable scientific texts without strong human intervention, it is likely predatory journals will exploit the quick production of scientific articles to generate low-quality content.

23. IMPROBABLE PRECISION. It’s a red flag when someone claims, "I drove from Chicago to Miami in 1.5847 hours." That kind of precision is unlikely.

More about spotting fake news

What Fake News is NOT

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Some people will mislabel rumors, hoaxes, and real news stories they don’t like as “fake news.” Another area of confusion is stories that result from mistaken or bad journalism.  

Sometimes well-respected news organizations get it wrong: sources can lie, documents can be faked, and reporters can mishear quotes. Sometimes new information changes the basic understanding of what is known publicly. You wouldn’t call this fake news since the motivation for posting the original (but mistaken) information wasn’t to deceive. What can make the situation worse: is the financial pressure of shifting away from legacy media (like newspapers) into the digital world, leaving the news industry scrambling to figure out how to support quality journalism financially. 

Between the pressure to meet social media engagement quotas and competition with other publications, writers often don’t get the necessary time to craft thoughtful and nuanced stories—or possess the power to reject an assignment over concerns about amplification.

Inaccurate details, such as reporting that four people are dead in a plane crash instead of six, can result from an honest mistake. The wrong number might have been heard or written down.

During breaking news, information will quickly shift as bits trickle into news organizations. It takes time to get a clear overall picture of what’s happening. Sometimes law enforcement officials or public relations professionals get the story wrong and send inaccurate information. At those times, news organizations are simply repeating mistakes. This is most likely to happen when only one source of information available whenever a story breaks.

Legitimate news sources will report the truth—as best they know it at the time. But as new information comes in, the story can shift. Just like with scientific research, this meandering pathway is just part of the process of getting to the truth.

It’s worth noting that the approach of legacy news organizations (The Washington Post, CNN) differs from new media outlets (BuzzFeed News, Politico). Traditional outlets aim at objectivity or neutral-voice reporting, where the focus is on being balanced, keeping the journalist’s opinions out of reports. More recently launched news sites are likely to focus on immediacy and transparency over neutrality and update readers whenever more information is known. Each approach presents different weaknesses for reporters to overcome. Of course, commentators may reference news information but are not acting as neutral reporters. Opinion pieces are often confused with basic news reporting. Pay attention whether you are reading a news report, an editorial, a guest blogger, a review, a disguised ad, or a comment.

The bottom line: be skeptical and bring a critical mind with you to everything you read. Keep in mind that “fake news” can be about something else besides the truth. As University of Southern California media scholar Mike Ananny has said, it is often “a struggle between [how] different people envision what kind of world that they want.”

Here are some tips for determining if a story is likely reliable. An organization does not need to tick off all these qualifiers in order to be considered authentic and accurate, but the more you see red flags pop up, the more a healthy skepticism is in order.

You’ll notice these are “tips” and not a checklist. Checklists can oversimply the nuances of discernment into black-and-white boxes.

More about spotting fake news

Four Kinds of News Sites

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1-Quality news brands (like the BBC and The Washington Post) have earned their reputations over time as consistently reliable news sources (not perfect, but more trustworthy). Savvy readers don’t expect as much from 2-inconsistent outlets that sometimes show bias but are not “fake” (Huffington Post, Fox News). In these cases, some information may be misleading by the way an issue is framed. Then there are 3-satirical news sites (The Onion, Clickhole, and The Babylon Bee). The articles and videos are intentionally fake but intended to be funny or make a point. They aren’t designed to fool anyone. 4-Fake news sites deliberately fabricate stories. (RT News, The Globe) Packaged as legitimate journalism, these articles may mix some truth with outright lies to deceive readers or gain clicks. Fact-checkers distinguish between misinformation, where the sharer may not realize the information is fraudulent, and disinformation, where the creator/sharer knows the information is false. In each case, the motivation of the sharer can be different.

Google searches for “Fake News” since 2014

The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics encourages journalists to “seek truth and report” and “be accountable and transparent” while doing it. Looking for these qualities is an effective way to separate the fake and the real.

Where AI Might Take Journalism

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Imagine having a written news story converted into a video by AI. The AI would not be taking away from the journalism but providing more options to access the information. Perhaps the story can be adjusted based on preferences. For instance, perhaps the reader doesn’t know much about economics and wants the material delivered in simple economic terms. Or the reader might want more detail in a story related to their field. AI would be used to adjust the complexity of the delivery. This may be the kind of journalism we are headed toward.

Articles about Student Journalists Covering Gaza Protests

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25 free (mostly one hour) Journalism courses

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Free short online courses to strengthen your skills and add a line to your resume. Most of these Poynter courses are one-hour in length or less.

Journalism Fundamentals: Craft & Values - A five-hour, self-directed course that covers basics in five areas: newsgathering, interviewing, ethics, law and diversity. 

Telling Stories with Sound - Learn the fundamentals of audio reporting and editing in this self-directed course.  

How to Spot Misinformation Online - Learn simple digital literacy skills to outsmart algorithms, detect falsehoods and make decisions based on factual information

Understanding Title IX - This course is designed to help journalists understand the applications of Title IX.

Clear, Strong Writing for Broadcast Journalism - One-hour video tutorial  

Powerful Writing: Leverage Your Video and Sound

In this one-hour video tutorial, early-career journalists will learn how to seamlessly combine audio, video and copy in captivating news packages.  

Writing for the Ear - In this five-part course, you’ll learn everything you need to write more effective audio narratives.

Fact-Check It: Digital Tools to Verify Everything Online 

News Sense: The Building Blocks of News - What makes an idea or event a news story?

Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More - Finding and fixing the most common style, grammar and punctuation errors.

Avoiding Plagiarism and Fabrication - For authors, editors, educators, journalists, journalism students, news producers and news consumers. 

The Writer’s Workbench: 50 Tools You Can Use - Ethics of Journalism Build or refine your process for making ethical decisions.

Conducting Interviews that Matter  

Make Design More Inclusive: Defeat Unconscious Bias in Visuals 

Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Publishers - Three important areas of media law that specifically relate to gathering information and publishing online: defamation, privacy and copyright.

Freedom of Information and Your Right to Know - How to use the Freedom of Information Act, Public Records Laws and Open Meetings Laws to uphold your right to know the government’s actions.

Journalism and Trauma - How traumatic stress affects victims and how to interview trauma victims with compassion and respect. 

How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust (International Edition) - What news audiences in various parts of the world don’t understand about how journalism works.

Is This Legit? Digital Media Literacy 101 - MediaWise’s Campus Correspondents explain the fact-checking tools and techniques that professionals use in their day-to-day work.

The On-Ramp to Media Literacy - Center for Media Literacy  

How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust

Dignity and Precision in Language

How to Avoid Being Sued: Defamation Law in the 21st Century

Conducting Interviews That Matter

11 Quotes Worth Reading about AI in the Newsroom from Recent Articles

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The Associated Press today released guidance on how it uses generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and will update its AP Stylebook to reflect a new era for newsrooms. While AP staff may experiment with ChatGPT with caution, they do not use it to create publishable content,” according to the standards. “Any output from a generative AI tool should be treated as unvetted source material.” Poynter  

How Will Artificial Intelligence Change the News Business? Here are three theories of the case. NY  Mag

A multitude of leading newsrooms have recently injected code into their websites that blocks OpenAI’s web crawler, GPTBot, from scanning their platforms for content. The deep archives and intellectual property rights of these news organizations are immensely valuable — arguably crucial — to training A.I. models such as ChatGPT in efforts to provide users with accurate information. Meanwhile, the Associated Press went a different route, hammering out its own licensing deal with the A.I. developer, though it notably did not share key terms of the agreement. CNN

Wired magazine has a page dedicated to explaining how its journalists use AI tools (to suggest headlines or potential cuts to shorten a story, the policy states) and how they don’t (no AI-generated images instead of stock photos, according to the policy). Wired makes it clear to readers that these policies may change as the technology does. Poynter 

Ultimately, AI is a prism. Information goes into it and the bot can refract a spectrum of stories and simulated perspectives, but it may also distort those views, missing the nuances and human elements that give local news its heart and soul. Understanding and staying abreast of these technological developments is crucial, but so is maintaining a healthy skepticism. Joe Amditis on Medium

Lede AI (was developed) to help newsrooms cover sports games they would have otherwise missed. Lede AI draws from a national database of sports results submitted by fans to generate short articles that are automatically published after a game ends. the AI-written summaries sometimes missed “factual nuances” in stories, and the AI-generated text could be “corny” and repetitive. Poynter 

OpenAI, the parent company to ChatGPT, will fund a new journalism ethics initiative at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute with a $395,000 grant. Axios

Several news organizations, writers and photographers groups are pushing to be involved in creating standards for the use of artificial intelligence, particularly as it concerns intellectual property rights and the potential spread of misinformation. Associated Press

The 'Irish Times' mistakenly publishes fake article written by AI. The person behind the deception, whose identity remains unknown, had used an artificial intelligence (AI) program to create the text and images of the writer.  Le Monde

A new, completely AI-driven website called the LocalLens wants to be a kind of metal detector for local news — claiming to surface stories that might otherwise remain buried. Joe Amditis writing on Medium

The New York Times has decided not to join a group of media companies attempting to jointly negotiate with the major tech companies over use of their content to power artificial intelligence. Semafor 

The 3 Things Far-Right & Far-Left Political News Sources have in Common

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When researchers analyzed almost 6,000 political news stories produced by partisan and nonpartisan media outlets in 2021, three things became clear:

  • Media outlets with extreme biases — regardless of whether it was a conservative or liberal bias — tended to use shorter sentences and less formal language than nonpartisan outlets.

  • Mainstream news organizations, as a whole, wrote at a higher reading level.

  • Far-right and far-left outlets took a more negative tone than nonpartisan outlets. They generally had a lower ratio of positive to negative words.

The researchers describe their findings in a paper forthcoming in Journalism Studies, “At the Extremes: Assessing Readability, Grade Level, Sentiment, and Tone in US Media Outlets.”

Read the full article from Journalist’s Resources here.

The value of video in news content has its limits

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Starting in 2015, many online media companies started “pivoting to video,” gutting their traditional newsrooms and spending large amounts of money to build video journalism operations from scratch. Part of the impetus for that pivot was metrics showing that audiences preferred video to text—metrics provided, in large part, by Facebook. In 2014, Facebook claimed that “Facebook has averaged more than 1 billion video views every day.” Those metrics turned out to be grossly inflated, by as much as 60 to 80 percent. Facebook and the like want more video to run ads in because it allows them to make more money. And by claiming that this is what "readers want," news media could be manipulated into creating more video.

Katharine Trendcosta & Mitch Stoltz writing for EFF