ABSTRACT
Quality journalism has become more important than ever due to the need for quality and trustworthy media outlets that can provide accurate information to the public and help to address and counterbalance the wide and rapid spread of disinformation. At the same time, quality journalism is under pressure due to loss of revenue and competition from alternative information providers. This vision paper discusses how recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), and in Machine Learning (ML) in particular, can be harnessed to support efficient production of high-quality journalism. From a news consumer perspective, the key parameter here concerns the degree of trust that is engendered by quality news production. For this reason, the paper will discuss how AI techniques can be applied to all aspects of news, at all stages of its production cycle, to increase trust.
Eight authors present this comprehensive paper on using AI tools to enhance trust in journalism. They provide a detailed analysis for AI applications in four stages of the journalistic lifecycle: gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting.
Overall, they call for “rigorous evidence-based journalism. . . that is open about its position and values.”
Four tables show problems, AI techniques, AI opportunities, and AI risks within each lifecycle stage. This supports quicker scanning by surfacing the rigour taken in their analysis.
Six of the authors are academics and two are working journalists.
AUTHORS
Andreas L Opdahl, University of Bergen, Norway
Bjørnar Tessem, University of Bergen, Norway
Duc-Tien Dang-Nguyen, University of Bergen, Norway
Enrico Motta, University of Bergen, Norway and The Open University, UK
Vinay Setty, University of Stavanger, Norway
Eivind Throndsen, Schibsted, Oslo, Norway
Are Tverberg, TV 2, Bergen, Norway
Christoph Trattner, University of Bergen, Norway
“. . . while we believe that the adoption of AI techniques is not necessarily sufficient to tackle the current issues in the media landscape, we also believe that no quality news outlet is likely to survive in the 21st century unless it is able to take full advantage of the opportunities created by AI and its related technologies.”
– Opdahl et al.
Trustworthy journalism through AI | DATA KNOWLEDGE & ENGINEERING | May 2023 | by Opdahl et al.