{"id":782,"date":"2024-05-31T20:18:35","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T20:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/?p=782"},"modified":"2024-06-21T15:29:12","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T15:29:12","slug":"ai-applications-in-newsrooms-could-rebuild-public-trust-in-media-roundtable-panelists-agree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/2024\/05\/31\/ai-applications-in-newsrooms-could-rebuild-public-trust-in-media-roundtable-panelists-agree\/","title":{"rendered":"AI applications in newsrooms could rebuild public trust in media, roundtable panelists agree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A group of experts with diverse touchpoints in the media industry agreed during a roundtable talk on Thursday in Toronto that the use of artificial intelligence in newsrooms might help alleviate the current  crisis facing journalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Panelists discussed a variety of current and future applications of generative AI, including its use to create summaries of public meetings, to help independent news outlets save time with business development and to generate multiple versions of stories to serve different audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/FEATURE-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-812\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/FEATURE-3.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/FEATURE-3-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/FEATURE-3-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A panel on AI in newsrooms hosted by Carleton University&#8217;s School of Journalism and Communication was held May 30 at the downtown Toronto offices of the Globe and Mail. From left to right: Moderator Kate Porter, a CBC broadcaster and Carleton journalism instructor; U.S. media consultant Louise Story, a former <em>Wall Street Journal <\/em>chief news strategist and chief product &amp; technology officer&nbsp;(on screen); Toronto-based media consultant and entrepreneur Anita Li, founder of The Green Line; Nafid Ahmed, the Globe&#8217;s vice-president <strong>of enterprise analytics, data science &amp; consumer insights<\/strong>; and Troy Thibodeaux, New Orleans-based director of AI products and services for The Associated Press. [Photo \u00a9 Angel Xing]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The panel was moderated by Kate Porter, a Carleton journalism instructor and veteran city hall reporter with CBC Ottawa who teaches courses on audio and video journalism and civic institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Journalism &amp; AI roundtable: AI in your news organization\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QPnRt_MkDVo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Troy Thibodeaux, director of AI products and services at The Associated Press, emphasized a pragmatic approach to the technology and the need for a balance between creative experimentation with AI and maintaining rigorous journalistic standards. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>U.S.-based AP has been a leader in developing <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.ap.org\/introducing-5-ai-solutions-for-local-news\">AI solutions for local news outlets<\/a>, which the news agency has begun experimenting with in-house, said Thibodeaux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8216;Fundamentally, how people consume news, how we produce news, how news gets to people, everything might change in the next five-plus years. So we have to be really fluid in what we\u2019re trying to do.&#8217;<\/p>\n<cite>\u2014 Nafid Ahmed, vice-president of enterprise analytics, data science &amp; consumer insights, Globe and Mail<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>News organizations &#8220;should start someplace where there is a significant enough pain point that people are willing to take a chance,\u201d said Thibodeaux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conversation also featured Louise Story, who joined remotely. She is a media consultant at the intersection of journalism and tech who previously worked as chief news strategist and chief product and technology officer at <em>The Wall Street Journal<\/em> and co-authored <em>The New York Times\u2019<\/em> landmark <a href=\"https:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2014\/05\/the-leaked-new-york-times-innovation-report-is-one-of-the-key-documents-of-this-media-age\/\">Innovation Report<\/a> in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the face of AI innovation, Story stressed that if journalists can remember that both their economic value and responsibility to the public are fundamentally about creating new information, the news industry may be able to repair the public\u2019s trust by leveraging AI to free up journalists from mundane tasks so they can spend more time observing and investigating for the kinds of stories only perceptive, creative human beings could produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe are currently in a news crisis around the world, because we don\u2019t have as many reporters in the field in front of people. You don\u2019t see reporters out at an event, people don\u2019t meet reporters,\u201d Story said. \u201cAnd so, this is a moment in our industry where it\u2019s possible, by really effectively using AI, to also get people going out in person.\u201d &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/KATE-AND-ANITA_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-814\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/KATE-AND-ANITA_.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/KATE-AND-ANITA_-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/KATE-AND-ANITA_-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Moderator Kate Porter and panelist Anita Li discuss the power of AI in newsrooms. <\/strong>[<strong>Photo \u00a9 Angel Xing<\/strong>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anita Li, the founder, editor-in-chief and publisher at <em><a href=\"https:\/\/thegreenline.to\/\">The Green Line<\/a><\/em>, a hyper-local Toronto-based news outlet, said utilizing AI tools in her team\u2019s small operation has freed up journalists to have face-to-face connections with the public in Toronto\u2019s \u201cnews donuts&#8221; \u2014 underserved pockets of the city in the media landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo me, (AI) can really be a boon for local media and maybe generate a renaissance or support the renaissance that\u2019s already flourishing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Li said she sees this community-based approach contrasting with the rise of venture capital-backed media outlets during the early 2010s, which have faced deep job cuts and many closures as investors try to wring value out of distressed assets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_6385.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-813\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_6385.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_6385-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_6385-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Data scientist and Globe and Mail vice-president<\/strong> <strong>Nafid Ahmed shares his insights with AP&#8217;s AI leader Troy Thibodeaux and the rest of the roundtable attendees on May 30 in Toronto<em>. <\/em>[Photo \u00a9 Angel Xing] <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Panelist Nafid Ahmed, a data scientist and vice-president of enterprise analytics, data science, and consumer insights at <em>The Globe and Mail<\/em>, said the current era can be characterized as an \u201cefficiency phase\u201d of AI applications in news. Ahmed said a \u201ctransformation phase\u201d will follow in the next two to five years, supported by the foundation of generative AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After that, he said, the industry will enter a \u201cnew information\u201d phase, during which the entire news distribution model may change completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFundamentally, how people consume news, how we produce news, how news gets to people, everything might change in the next five-plus years,\u201d Ahmed said. \u201cSo, we have to be really fluid in what we\u2019re trying to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of experts with diverse touchpoints in the media industry agreed during a roundtable talk on Thursday in Toronto that the use of artificial intelligence in newsrooms might help alleviate the current crisis facing journalism. Panelists discussed a variety of current and future applications of generative AI, including its use to create summaries of &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":922,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/journalism-and-AI\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}