13 Free webinars in the next 2 weeks about social media, AI, media law, journalism, & more

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Tue, July 18 - Critical AI Literacy

What: How can we develop our own critical AI literacy as educators, and how do we develop students' critical AI literacies? In this session, we will explore multiple dimensions of critical AI literacy and discuss various pedagogical strategies educators can use in class.

Who: Maha Bali is Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo.

When: Noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Media Education Lab

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Tue, July 18 - Age Verification Tech for Social Media: Exploring the Opportunities and Pitfalls

What: A discussion of age verification technology for social media, AI age estimation, and current capabilities and limitations that policymakers should consider when crafting legislation designed to protect children.

Who: Scott Brennen, Head of Online Expression Policy Center on Technology Policy, UNC-Chapel Hill;  Ashley Johnson, Senior Policy Analyst Information, Technology and Innovation Foundation; Yuelin Li, Chief Product Officer, Onfido; Nicole Saad Bembridge, Associate Counsel, NetChoice

When: Noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation

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Tue, July 18 - Threats to Haitian Journalists and Press Freedom

What: A discussion of the dangers journalists face as they cover the upheavals in Haiti.

Who: Macolivie J. Neel, executive editor of Haitian Times; Michael Drudge President, San Antonio Pro SPJ Chapter & retired foreign correspondent.

When: 9:30 am, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Society of Professional Journalists

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Tue, July 18 - One-Day Law School for Journalists

What: An intensive program designed to support journalists and others in the media who face the challenge of reporting on the court system without a law degree. While this program was designed for those in the media, all are welcome to attend.

Who: David Sonenshein, Professor Emeritus, Temple University; James E. Beasley School of Law;

Judge Timothy K. Lewis, Former Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit;  Linda Greenhouse, Senior Research Scholar in Law, Yale Law School; John Watson, Associate Professor, School of Communication, American University; Cynthia Rufe, Senior Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; Charles Becker, Deputy Chief Counsel, Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board; Melissa Norton, Deputy Chief Counsel, Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board; Kaitlin Gurney, Partner, Ballard Spahr LLP; Jane Kirtley, Director, Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, University of Minnesota Law School; Paula Knudsen Burke, Local Legal Initiative Staff Attorney, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; Melissa Melewsky, Media Law Counsel, Pennsylvania News Media Association, and others.

When: 9:30 am – 3:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Pennsylvanians for Modern Court & the Society of Environmental Journalists

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Wed, July 19 - How to Manage a Crisis on Social Media

What: Our expert panel will guide you through the rocky terrain of crisis communication, provide insights, and answer all your questions.  Whether you're facing a natural disaster, a PR nightmare, or an unexpected disruption, this webinar will help you navigate the storm. 

Who: Melanie Gaboriault, Senior Director Global Corporate Communications, Hootsuite and panelists

When: 11 am, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Hootsuite

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Wed, July 19 - Unlock More Value From Your Social Media Metrics

What: Learn the best practices to uncover valuable insights about your brand, industry and competitors that can help you craft content that resonates with your target audience

Who: Harvey Rañola Global Head of Media Intelligence NetBase Quid 

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: NetBase Quid 

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Thu, July 20 - Quick, actionable strategies for earning trust

What: In this quick training we'll be talking about how journalists can earn trust with sources.   

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Trusting News

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Mon, July 24 - Breaking Into Narrative Journalism

What: In this webinar, seasoned editors and reporters will offer tips for breaking into narrative journalism, including knowing what editors want, crafting pitches and figuring out whether the pay will be worth the effort.

Who: Pamela Weintraub is the senior editor for science and psychology at Aeon and the co-editor in chief at OpenMind magazine; Brady Huggett is the enterprise editor at Spectrum, where he edits features and long-form projects; Jane C. Hu is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. She sits on the boards of the National Association of Science Writers and The Open Notebook.

When: Noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Association of Health Care Journalists

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Tue, July 25 - Storytelling for Impact

What: Tips, techniques and tools to help the modern marketer tell better and more impactful stories to activate their audiences around ideas and actions.

Who: Firespring’s Kiersten Hill, Director of Nonprofit Solutions

When: 2 pm, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Firespring

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Tue, July 25 - Brain Drain: How to Combat Burnout

What: You’ll hear from a burnout expert about steps you can take to get balance back in your life. Specifically, you’ll learn:  The key indicators of burnout to watch out for in yourself and your team. How to create more effective boundaries at work … even when the workload is piling up. Stress relieving techniques for when you feel completely overwhelmed.

Who: Lisa Jammer, Chief People and Culture Officer, Department of Information Resources, Texas

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: GovLoop

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Tue, July 25 - Getting Projects Done Right

What: A simple, intuitive framework to increase every project’s likelihood of success using case studies from multiple industries and companies across the globe,’

Who: Project management expert Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, author of the HBR Project Management Handbook.

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Harvard Business Review

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Tue, July 25 – Artificial Intelligence — The Good, the Bad, and the Scary

What: Join us as we explore the boundless potential of AI, where we will confront the good, the bad, and the downright scary aspects of these game-changing technologies. This webinar will explore how to harness the power of AI while remaining responsible stewards of the invaluable data entrusted to us  

Who: Deb Stuligross, a seasoned technology professional with extensive experience working alongside nonprofit organizations.

When: 10 am, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: TechSoup

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Mon, July 26 - Do More With Data: A Needs-Based Approach to Advanced Audience Strategies  

What: How to increase brand engagement and conversions by using data to personalize your messaging, reach audiences across multiple channels, and target your audiences in addressable advertising. Learn more about the use of AI, ML, and other cutting-edge data science tools in audience targeting.  

Who: TransUnion Director of Product Marketing Ayelet Palmore; Audigent President Greg Williams is

When: 10 am, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: TransUnion (IT Services & Consulting)

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Fri, July 28 - Social Media Journalism

What: In this webinar we will discuss the possibilities and challenges that social networks are putting before the world of journalism.

Who: Moderator Livia Viganò, the co-founder of Factanza Media and panalists

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Journalismfund Europe

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Other People are Responsible for the Way I Feel

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A consistent characteristic of imperative people is the desire to persuade others to be just like them. When encouraged to look back to their childhoods, most imperative people can recall a history of strong persuasion. The parents have been so intent on keeping order that their behavior said, “If I can get you to behave in my world, there will be order.” Developmental years were full of relationships that featured arm-twisting, intimidation, or threats.

Jack told me that he had learned early on that it was not safe to be vulnerable. He told me, “I remember a scene when I was only five or six years old. I had just stepped onto the back porch of our home to set something outside when a very loud clap of thunder sounded. Scared to death, I ran indoors, where my father grabbed me and told me to quit acting so ridiculous. Then my mother scolded me for upsetting my father. I was immediately defensive and told them they were both mean. The next thing I knew, I was smarting from a spanking.”

“In a sense you were in school at times like that.” I said, “You witnessed how effectively they persuaded you to be what they wanted, so you eventually learned to do likewise with your family.”

While it is a good thing to express opinions (as opposed to repressing them), it is not healthy for us to become bossy or condescending or explosive in order to get our way.

Les Carter, Imperative People: Those Who Must Be in Control

Relational Diversity

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A 2022 study found that the more “relational diversity” a person has in their social repertoire, the higher their well-being. Using the analogy of a “social portfolio,” Harvard Business School doctoral candidate Hanne Collins and her colleagues found when people socialize with a range of conversation partners — family members, coworkers, friends, and strangers — on a given day, they report feeling happier than those who converse with fewer “categories” of people. 

Allie Volpe writing in Vox

Why should I love my neighbor?

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If anyone asks me why he should love his neighbor, I would not know how to answer him, and I could only ask in my turn why he should pose such a question...It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring. 

Alfred Adler

9 Articles about AI & Design

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14 Articles about AI & Copyright

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Hiring a disruptor

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Peripheral leaders who operate at the geographical and cultural margins of an organization, often see disruption coming much earlier than those at the center. The same leaders are also, research shows, most likely to come up with innovative ideas. But to the leaders at the core of the organization, the concerns of those at its periphery often seem premature and exaggerated, and their plans far too risky.

Hiring a disruptor can be a conservative move, an unconscious way to prove the power of traditions and blame someone else’s style for our irrational investment in them. Any aspiring disruptor who does not get a handle on this dynamic is at risk of being set up. Picking an outsider to deliver, or more precisely embody, that message makes it easier to dismiss the message.  

Gianpiero Petriglieri writing in the Harvard Business Review

7 articles worth reading about AI & legal issues (aside from copyright)

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17 great quotes about AI limitations

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Machine thinking is great for understanding the behavioral patterns across populations. It is not great for understanding the unique individual right in front of you. If you can understand another person’s perspective, you have a more valuable skill than the skill possessed by some machine vacuuming up vast masses of data about no one in particular. New York Times

Ian Bogost suggests that ChatGPT produces “an icon of the answer … rather than the answer itself.”  The Atlantic

A large language model is not capable of conducting independent research or gathering new information. It is only capable of generating text based on the input it is given, so it would not be able to provide original insights or perspectives on the topic at hand. Inside Higher Ed

The ability to create and give a good speech, connect with an audience, and organize fun and productive gatherings seem like a suite of skills that A.I. will not replicate. New York Times

The idea that “AI” can navigate contested terrain by flagging “disagreement” and synthesizing links to “both sides” is hardly sufficient. Such illusions of balance obscure the need to situate information and differentiate among sources: precisely the critical skills that college writing was designed to cultivate and empower. Public Books 

Something I noticed when I asked ChatGPT to write a short story: It makes everything sound like an unfunny parody. New York Magazine

I’ve learned that it is being used for such daily tasks as: translating code from one programming language to another, potentially saving hours spent searching web forums for a solution; generating plain-language summaries of published research, or identifying key arguments on a particular topic; and creating bullet points to pull into a presentation or lecture. Chronicle of Higher Ed

If AI-generated forensic sketches are ever released to the public, they can reinforce stereotypes and racial biases and can hamper an investigation by directing attention to people who look like the sketch instead of the actual perpetrator. Vice

AI feels mundane. It just feels like using any other technology. So we really need to reckon with our own expectations, turn down the hype, and close the gap between what we imagine and what the reality is. The Markup

The information produced by AI language models and chatbots is often incorrect. The tricky thing is that when it’s wrong, it’s wrong in ways that are difficult to spot. The Verge

Our tests found that it sometimes offers responses that potentially include plagiarism, contradict itself, are factually incorrect or have grammatical errors, to name a few — all of which could be problematic at work. Washington Post

When we discuss hallucinations and out-of-date databases, we should be careful about reaching summative judgments. These products are still very much in development; there will be new innovations, and there will be bigger and better pools of data that will stir the pot among ranking brands and products. Inside Higher Ed

CNET started quietly publishing articles explaining financial topics using “‘automated technology’ – a stylistic euphemism for AI,” CNET had to issue corrections on 41 of the 77 stories after uncovering errors despite the articles being reviewed by humans prior to publication. Some of the errors came down to basic math. Columbia Journalism Review

I think the questionable accuracy of responses provided by ChatGPT is its biggest downside. It means the user is responsible for verifying the information, which takes away the ease people are attributing to ChatGPT. Demand Sage

ChatGPT has proven inept at reproducing even the simplest ideas in rocketry. In addition to messing up the rocket equation, it bungled concepts such as the thrust-to-weight ratio, a basic measure of the rocket's ability to fly. NPR

ChatGPT can write poemlike streams of regurgitated text, but . . . they don’t satisfy the minimal criterion of a poem, which is a pattern of language that compresses the messy data of experience, emotion, truth, or knowledge and turns those, as W. H. Auden wrote in 1935, into “memorable speech.” The Atlantic

Even if researchers trained these systems solely on peer-reviewed scientific literature, they might still produce statements that were scientifically ridiculous. Even if they learned solely from text that was true, they might still produce untruths. Even if they learned only from text that was wholesome, they might still generate something creepy. New York Times

8 AI Predictions

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Humans will specialize in whatever AI does worst. Chronicle of Higher Ed

Many types of work will be taken over by machines, and jobs will vanish. This change is typically seen as a cause for gloom. I suggest we see it as an opportunity to revitalize education by replacing unsatisfying work with meaningful labor. Chronicle of Higher Ed

AI will certainly force us to concentrate on those talents and skills that will remain uniquely human. Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Will writers start proclaiming they are “natural” writers, with no AI use in their work, akin to bodybuilders who choose not to use performance-enhancing drugs? Washington Post

It’s going to creep into our lives in ways we least expect it  Wall Street Journal

The role of software engineers will evolve into one of guiding and overseeing the AI's work, providing input and feedback, and ensuring that the generated code meets the project's requirements.  Prompt engineering will be critical in using automated code generators as prompts must be carefully crafted to accurately capture the intent of the desired code.  Forbes

While I think that A.I. tools help express our creativity, creativity will still be the driving force behind the future of art. New York Magazine

The new web is struggling to be born, and the decisions we make now will shape how it grows  The Verge  

7 Webinars in the next 9 days about AI, teaching, media law, broadcast, journalism & social media

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Thu, July 6 - Ethics and Privacy in the Age of AI

What: Our speakers will introduce you to the foundations of data ethics and privacy, how they intersect, and how to evaluate ethical, privacy, and legal principles if you choose to leverage generative AI tools in your fundraising and engagement practices.

Who: Carrie Cobb, VP, Chief Data Officer at Blackbaud; Cameron Stoll, Sr. Director of Privacy Management at Blackbaud

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Blackbaud

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Thu, July 6 - The Future of Education in the Age of AI: Trends, Issues and Solutions

What: This workshop explores current and future trends, issues, and solutions of AI in education, emphasizing human-in-the-loop (HITL) approaches to engage educators and learners in design, development, and evaluation. Participants will explore the latest research and best practices to critically and creatively use AI to improve teaching and learning. They will also get an opportunity to network with other researchers and practitioners interested in AI and education.

Who: W. Ian O'Byrne Associate Professor of Literacy Education, College of Charleston

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Media Education Lab

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Mon, July 10 - Media Law Office Hours

What: Journalists with legal questions to help find answers with an attorney who specializes in this area.  

Who: Attorney Matthew Leish

When: 5 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: New York’s Deadline Club

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Tue, July 11 - A Practical Newsroom Guide to Artificial Intelligence

What: We’ll lift up some examples of AI being put to use, share guidelines for implementing it and talk about approachable ways of testing this in your newsroom.

Who: Aimee Rinehart, Senior Product Manager AI Strategy at The Associated Press, will moderate this discussion; Joe Amditis, Assistant Director of Products and Events, Center for Cooperative Media; Ernest Kung, AI Product Manager, The Associated Press; Adriana Lacy, Adriana Lacy Consulting (2021 MJ Bear Fellow); Hank Sims, Editor and Lead Developer, Lost Coast Outpost

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free for ONA members ($25 for nonmembers)

Sponsor: Online News Association

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Tue, July 11 - Social Media 101 for Nonprofits

What: Practical tips and tools for extending your cause and mission via social media. We cover the basics of using social media for your nonprofit organization and give you handy tips for the “big 3:” Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Who: Kiersten Hill, Director of Nonprofit Solutions

When: 2 pm, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: FireSpring

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Wed, July 12 - Digging Deeper in Broadcast Journalism

What: This lesson will focus on how anyone involved in gathering information for broadcast news can use investigative techniques in his or her daily work despite the constraints of busy newsrooms and deadline pressures. You’ll learn:  How to incorporate data into your stories (and convince your editor to let you do so). How to use public records to strengthen your reporting. How to find exclusives and best pitch them to your manager.

Who: Kevin Rothstein is a producer with the investigative unit at WCVB-TV in Boston, specializing in covering criminal justice issues and vulnerable populations.

When: Noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: International Center for Journalists

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Friday, July 14 - Elevate your journalism by collaborating

What: This session will examine the benefits and even a few pitfalls of news collaborations. Plus, you’ll see examples of success stories to spur you to look for different ways to collaborate with other newsrooms and organizations to tell the most important stories to your readers.

Who: Jean Hodges of Gannett

When: 1 pm, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: West Virginia Press Association

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The new web struggles to be born

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The changes AI is currently causing are just the latest in a long struggle in the web’s history. Essentially, this is a battle over information — over who makes it, how you access it, and who gets paid. But just because the fight is familiar doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter, nor does it guarantee the system that follows will be better than what we have now. The new web is struggling to be born, and the decisions we make now will shape how it grows.

James Vincent writing in The Verge