European Broadcasting Union (EBU)

Last Thursday, in the Assises du Journalisme de Bruxelles hosted by IHECS, I took part in a long and intense panel discussion on the perks and challenges brought by AI in European newsrooms. Around the table were also Carolin Ollivier (ARTE), Uli Köppen (Bayerischer Rundfunk) 🇩🇪 , Josef El Mahdi (Sveriges Radio) 🇸🇪 , Alexandre Barlot (Radio France) 🇫🇷 , Eglantine Nyssen (Le Vif) 🇧🇪 , Olalla Novoa Ojea (PRISA) 🇪🇸 , Vincent Berthier (Reporters sans frontières (RSF) 🌏 and Bastien Remy (European Commission) 🇪🇺 . 🤖 From transcription and translation to designing AI-driven public service algorithms, fact-checking statistical assumptions, interacting with research reports, creating magazine covers, and detecting audio deepfakes, it was awesome to hear about such diverse uses of AI, united by the shared need to approach it cautiously and consider ethical charters to keep the bot under human oversight. 🙌 I loved seeing so many European Broadcasting Union (EBU) members at the table (including three AEP participants!). Public service media projects were so well represented that someone in the audience asked whether commercial media were falling behind in reflecting on AI applications in news.. 😁 🎓 The session concluded with great insights from academics: Charlotte Van Breusegem and Lavinia Rotili from UCLouvain - Université catholique de Louvain and Dr Richard Fletcher from the University of Oxford and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. It was striking —and a bit fun — to see how well our own presentations mirrored their findings. 📢 The audience's questions were enlightening too, reminding those of us getting used to working with AI of the importance of stepping back to reassess and reflect. A couple of takeaways: - Understandably, when it comes to introducing AI in newsrooms, reactions vary significantly depending on whether the project is innovation-based or focused on productivity gains. - Conducting academic research on such a fast paced, developing field is incredibly challenging. - A great tip from Vincent Berthier: don’t humanize the bot. Instead of saying, "GPT told me…", get used to saying, "The machine produced…". - And a memorable analogy (credit to Joseph Smith from The Guardian): using AI as a journalist is like being behind the wheel of a self-driving car. It may have an emergency override, but if your attention drops, you won’t react in time to take control. Thanks to all the panelists for a great talk, to Association Journalisme et citoyenneté for the event, to Philippe Couve for hosting the session, and a shout out to Clothilde Le Coz, and Gaëtan Gras for the organization!

🎦🎤We had an awesome few days in Vilnius, Lithuania last week, meeting our friends and colleagues at the 19th EBU News Assembly. It brought together 85 public media newsroom leaders from 43 EBU Members in 35 countries.   💡Here are five of the many things I learned:                                                                 1) THE FUTURE IS SAFE IN THEIR HANDS Fresh from spending a week in another EBU Member’s newsroom, Anita Bartolovic and Tadas Paškevičius – both under 30 years old – shared their inspiration and motivation at being the first to take part in our new Young Journalist Exchange programme. It will only be a few years before Anita, Tadas and their colleagues will be the ones sitting in the News Assembly audience as senior media executives. Would you watch your evening news bulletin if you did not work for the company? “No, probably not”. Refreshingly honest.   2) AI FOR GOOD I don’t think I was alone in being new to “dorking”. Eeva S. and Derek Bowler showed us how we can use AI tools to protect ourselves against mis- and disinformation but also to improve our investigative journalism and find the stories people in power would rather we didn’t.   3) IMPARTIALITY: 5 different members, 5 different approaches, 1 common goal – to maintain impartiality at all times and build the public’s trust in public service media. From the BBC’s campaign “trust is earned” where the motto is “if you know how it’s made you can trust what it says” to Francophone Belgium’s “cordon sanitaire” which bans the live broadcast of right-wing politicians in a part of the country where they have never gained a foothold. And the inspiring story from Polish Radio, reforming itself after years of intense political control. We learned that while impartiality remains the cornerstone of our journalism, the way that’s achieved can vary widely and there’s plenty to learn from each other. News Committee Chair Eric Scherer’s challenge “can you be impartial on fascism?” still rings in my ears.   4) REPORT WHAT THEY DO, NOT WHAT THEY SAY: That’s what Elmar Thevessen, Washington Bureau Chief for ZDF, told us as we discussed how a new Trump presidency could affect the way we report. Lithuanian MP and former Ambassador to the EU and US Žygimantas Pavilionis reminded us of the great responsibility we have to inform the public of the truth, because we are “on the frontline of democracy”.   5) THE EUROVISION NEWS TEAM ROCKS: This I knew already, but there’s nothing like seeing your team own their areas of expertise and present them brilliantly. I’m proud to have such a great team who have the needs of Members top of mind in everything they do.     LRT ZDF Polskie Radio S.A. Yle HRT Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė Viktorija Cieminytė Emilio San Pedro Emilie De Schaetzen Yolène Johanny Julien Dumont Clotilde Pupillo Belen Lopez Garrido Luis J. Kate de Pury Kim Gittleson Piotr Kaszynski John O'Callaghan   #NewsAssembly #TrustedNews #MediaFreedom #PublicServiceMedia