This is a list of news stories from 2018, displayed by recency, and human-selected for relevance. It’s not intended to include all references in the period. Headlines are direct links to the full story.

AI: An invaluable sixth sense for journalists?
WHAT’S NEW IN PUBLISHING | December 2018 |‘…journalists are needed despite the advances made by AI technology. But there is little doubt that AI tools have the potential to transform the way they work.’

After a Year of Tech Scandals, Our 10 Recommendations for AI
AI NOW INSTITUTE | December 2018 |
‘Let’s begin with better regulation, protecting workers, and applying “truth in advertising” rules to AI’

10 things about AI every newsroom should know
MEDIUM | December 2018 |
Most journalists are probably not aware, but AI is already affecting the news value chain, from news gathering to content processing and distribution.’

Quartz forms AI studio 
DIGIDAY | November 2018 |’
Quartz has used artificial intelligence technology to help it promote articles through its AI-enabled chatbots. Now the publication is looking to incorporate computers more in the reporting of those articles.’

Automated Journalism: A.I. Applications at New York Times, Reuters, and Other Media Giants
EMERJ | November 2018‘ Artificial intelligence in news media is being used in new ways from speeding up research to accumulating and cross-referencing data and beyond.’

How artificial intelligence is transforming journalism
EQUAL TIMES | November 2018 | ‘Automated news writing and distribution, without human supervision, is already a reality, often unbeknownst to the reader. This raises a number of basic questions.’

China gets its AI anchor. Now you can strike off even anchoring as a career
INDIA TODAY | November 2018 | ‘China’s state run press agency, Xinhua launched its first artificial intelligence (AI) anchors based on the model of Xinhua’s two anchors for English and Chinese platforms.’

Artificial intelligence demands genuine journalism
WORLD NEWS PUBLISHING FOCUS | November 2018 |Journalists, fear not Artificial Intelligence, for it may be the saviour of our trade, writes Maria Teresa Ronderos, Director of OSF’s Programme on Independent Journalism.’

These news anchors are professional and efficient. They’re also not human.
THE WASHINGTON POST | November 2018 |The new anchors at China’s state-run news agency have perfect hair and no pulse.’

Digitally Manipulated Reporters Could Devastate Trust In Journalism
TECHCO | November 2018 |‘Government-sanctioned use of manipulated video technology is a game changer for news audiences, and a chilling harbinger of dangers to come.’

Advancing journalism with Artificial Intelligence
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON | November 2018 |A new tool for journalists, developed by Cass academics, uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist in generating news angles’

To regulate AI we need new laws, not just a code of ethics
THE GUARDIAN | October 2018 | ‘Technology is becoming all-pervasive – global regulations must be created to avoid an unhealthy concentration of power in too few hands.’

Why Journalists Need To Understand Artificial Intelligence
EUROPEAN JOURNALISM OBSERVATORY | October 2018 | ‘Journalists are reporting on a phenomenon that is hard to explain, even for experts in the field. And compounding matters, most of the important conversations are taking place behind closed doors.’

The future of news is humans talking to machines
NEIMAN LAB | September 2018 | ‘…voice AI is the biggest technology revolution that the news industry is missing’

One million Hongkongers could lose their job to AI over next 20 years, study finds
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST | July 2018 | ‘…safer occupations were doctors, nurses, secondary school teachers, architects and journalists.’

How Facebook’s Chaotic Push Into Video Cost Hundreds of Journalists Their Jobs
THE ATLANTIC | October 2018 | ‘As media companies tried to divine the desires of the world’s biggest platform, they fired writers and lost their way.’

A.I. May Have Written This Article. But Is That Such a Bad Thing?
FORBES | September 2018 |‘Imagine how productive Woodward and Bernstein might have been if only they had robots to write their articles for the Washington Post.’

AI-Powered Journalism Means Change for Financial PR
O’Dwyer’s | August 2018 |‘News-writing software that can report current events in real time, with little or no human intervention, has obvious appeal to media companies and newsrooms, and it’s time for the public relations field to take seriously the eventual impact artificial intelligence systems will have on the practice of media relations.’

Google funds automated news project
BBC News | July 2018 | ‘Google is funding a robot journalism project in which computers will write 30,000 stories a month for local media.’

Journalists, look out: Google is funding the rise of the AI news machine in Europe
MASHABLE | July 2018 |‘… inevitable robot replacements are picking up steam — and more importantly, sponsorship — with another show of support from the world’s biggest tech company. ‘

Why bots taking over (some) journalism could be a good thing
TECHRADAR | July 2018 | ‘Automation isn’t the enemy of serious reporting’

Artificial intelligence as tool to fight fake news, social bots in Brazil’s elections
INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISTS’ NETWORK | June 2018 |‘We have the opportunity… to be very prepared to deal with the pitfalls of technology, such as fake news, social bots and macro-targets,’

What happens when China’s state-run media embraces AI?
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW | June 2018 | ‘With the addition of the Media Brain to Xinhua’s newsroom, the AI arms race has taken on greater significance for journalism as a race for information.’

AI can transfer human facial movements from one video to another | ENDGADGET | May 2018 | by Mallory Locklear | ‘The researchers say it’s the first time a method has transferred these types of movements between videos and the result is a series of clips that look incredibly realistic.’

Machines + Media 2018: New applications of data science and technology in media and journalism
TECH AT BLOOMBERG | May 2018 | ‘The media industry is on the verge of disruption. While the basic tenets of journalism are to present a balanced view based in facts, every aspect of storytelling and distribution is affected by technology.’

Can artificial intelligence save journalism?
DAILY SABAH | May 2018 | ‘Although the introduction of new artificial intelligence tools add to worries about job security, journalism might benefit from the innovative and efficient support the new technologies could offer’

This Media Startup Is Beating the Competition With a Newsroom Run by Robots
BLOOMBERG | May 2018 | ‘Yoneshige and his team have developed a tool, using machine learning, for finding breaking news in social media posts and writing it up as news reports. Essentially, it’s a newsroom staffed by engineers.’

Reimagined Google News service uses artificial intelligence to highlight ‘great reporting done by journalists around the globe’
PressGazette | May 2018 |Google has announced major changes to Google News which will use “the best of artificial intelligence to find the best of human intelligence” and make the service more personal to each user.’

A sober look at automated journalism
the pioneer | April 2018 | ‘With news organisations experimenting with newer technologies like Artificial Intelligence, is it a dawn of a new era in journalism. May be. But machines can never replace journalists’

Artificial Intelligence Will Affect The News We Consume. Whether That’s A Good Thing Is Up To Humans.
HUFFINGTON POST | April 2018 | ‘There are two paths ahead in the future of journalism, and both of them are shaped by artificial intelligence.’

A Startup Media Site Says AI Can Take Bias Out of News
MOTHERBOARD | April 2018 | ‘Knowhere is using AI to aggregate news and rewrite it ‘impartially’

Reuters is taking a big gamble on AI-supported journalism
WIRED UK | March 2018 |’
Reuters is building an AI tool to help journalists analyse data, suggest story ideas, and even write some sentences, aiming not to replace reporters but instead augment them with a digital data scientist-cum-copywriting assistant.’

How digital leaders from the BBC and Al Jazeera are planning for the ethics of AI
NEIMAN LAB | March 2018 | ‘If robot reporters are going to deploy from drones in war zones in the future, at what point do we have the conversation about the journalism ethics of all this?’

Can AI solve the internet’s fake news problem? A fact-checker investigates.
POPULAR SCIENCE | March 2018 | ‘We’re in our misinformation predicament partly because of algorithms. Can they also get us out of it?’

Artificial intelligence is about to transform science journalism – here’s how to prepare for it.
SAGE BLOG |March 2018 | ‘…so much of journalism will inevitably be changed by AI – and is already being changed. Some people fear loss of jobs in the long term, but few have thought about the opportunities it provides in the short term.’

How newsrooms will be adopting artificial intelligence in 2018
journalism.co.uk | January 2018 | ‘A look at the state of AI in newsrooms from the 2018 ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions’ report published by the Reuters Institute’

As technology develops, so must journalists’ codes of ethics
THE GUARDIAN | January 2018 | ‘AI is sure to bring many benefits but concerns over its ability to make decisions mean human journalists’ input remains vital.’

China’s news agency is reinventing itself with AI
NEIMAN LAB | January 2018 | ‘On the heels of billions of yuan of investment burrowed into China’s artificial intelligence scene, China’s state news agency has announced that it is rebuilding its newsroom to emphasize human-machine collaboration.’

A newspaper in Japan is using AI to summarize news stories to get them out quicker.
SPLICE | January 2018 | ‘In another step forward for robo-journalism, a regional newspaper in Japan is rolling out an artificial intelligence system that automatically generates summaries of news articles for distribution across a range of media platforms.’

Xinhua to integrate AI into news production
XINHUA NET | January 2018 | ‘China’s state news agency Xinhua announced Tuesday that it will further integrate Artificial Intelligence into its news production to build a high-tech newsroom in the near future.’


Briefs for 2017 | Briefs for 2014-2016 
Briefs for computer science/algorithms 2014 -2018

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