Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

What do people think about digital platforms? This is the question at the heart of our new report The report is based on fresh survey data from Spain, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US. It is authored by our colleagues Waqas Ejaz, Richard Fletcher, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Shannon McGregor, and it is funded by the Knight Foundation, which published a similar report in 2022, focusing only on the United States. The report includes insights on how many people get their news from platforms, how much they trust what they see in them, whether they think they are divisive and much more Click to read https://lnkd.in/dSyvsSBt

Journalism Today: special edition featuring our new report about digital platforms Our new report is based on fresh survey data from Germany, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US. It's authored by Waqas Ejaz, PhD Richard Fletcher Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Shannon McGregor, and generously funded by our friends at Knight Foundation. Click to read, share and subscribe

Journalism Today: British news under threat | A brave female Afghan journalist | Our podcast on AI and ethics This edition features Esther Alaribe Bron Maher Meghnad Bose Bahareh R. Heravi Arthur Grimonpont and many more Let us know if we missed anything, give us a like or re-post if you found this useful, and share with colleagues and friends

Low-quality, often inaccurate AI-generated text, images and video can be noticed both on social media and on websites purporting to be news outlets, usually with the purpose of reaching as many people as possible with the least amount of effort. Is this phenomenon, distinct from disinformation, a threat to the quality of the information ecosystem? Marina Adami spoke to three experts to discuss the duties of LLM developers, what news slop looks like in practice, and whether fears about it may be overblown. The experts. Prof Sandra Wachter from the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford described the concept of ‘careless speech’, defined by her and fellow academics Brent Mittelstadt and Chris Russell in a paper published this summer as AI output that is subtly inaccurate, oversimplified or biassed, and the dangers it could pose to society. McKenzie Sadeghi, editor of AI and Foreign Influence at NewsGuard, outlined the AI slop she’s seeing on bogus news sites, and AI in the newsroom expert David Caswell emphasised generative AI is just a tool that can be employed to add value if used thoughtfully. One view: “The thing that is most dangerous to a democratic society is not a liar, it's a bullshitter,” said Professor Sandra Wachter. Another side: “It's like spam. In the early days of email, it was completely out of control. But then we learned how to take care of it, and how to minimise it,” said David Caswell. Read: https://lnkd.in/dW92JcYs

Journalism Today: | Will AI slop kill journalism? | A budget bot | More organisations quit X This edition features Prof Sandra Wachter David Caswell McKenzie Sadeghi Marina Adami Jaemark Tordecilla Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University European Federation of Journalists Maja Sever Human Rights Watch Adrienne Raphel Jane Martinson and others Let us know if we missed anything, give us a like or re-post if you found this useful, and share with colleagues and friends

Filipino journalist Jaemark Tordecilla created an AI chatbot to speak to his country’s budget. Here's how The Philippines has one of the world’s most transparent budgeting systems. But ordinary citizens rarely get involved in the process. One of the reasons is the sheer size of the files. Opening them on a typical laptop often leads to frozen screens. Extracting any meaningful data requires using a professional tool or coding on Python or R, and there is no guide: if you’re a journalist, you would need to know the nuances of how the document is encoded to find exactly what you’re looking for. This is the problem Tordecilla wanted to solve when he created the Budget Bot, a Custom GPT that makes it easy for everyone to interrogate the Philippines' budget and to find the news stories government officials are not highlighting in their press releases. In a new piece, he explains why he created the bot, how he refined it and how he's improving it with suggestions from colleagues and technologists from other countries Click to read https://lnkd.in/dEKZgUUf

We are thrilled to learn that our alumna Laura Saarikoski has been appointed Director General of the Helsingin Sanomain Säätiö｜Helsingin Sanomat Foundation 🇫🇮 Laura was a Journalist Fellow at the Institute in 2011-12 and her project focused on being a leader in digital newsrooms https://lnkd.in/dhadg6dC

Journalism Today: Israel cuts ties with a newspaper | The new White House press secretary | BBC Sounds' latest licensing deal This edition features Haaretz Seacoast Media Group BBC and more. Let us know if we missed anything, give us a like or re-post if you found this useful, and share with colleagues and friends.

Some personal news. This will be my last year leading our flagship Reuters Institute Digital News Report and we’re looking for a new lead author to take it to the next level.   We started the DNR with just a handful of countries and the upcoming 2025 edition will be our largest yet ­– covering 48 markets.   It’s been quite a ride and over almost 15 years we’ve documented the fragmentation of media consumption, the rise of social media, declining trust, and the emergence of AI. We’ve helped set the agenda on issues such as news influencers and selective news avoidance and it’s been a real privilege to see the impact of this research across the industry but also with tech platforms, regulators, and academia. We couldn’t have done it without a super-talented team of academic researchers and partners, along with far- sighted sponsors such as the BBC, Google and Ofcom who have been with us on this journey from the start. The project is in great shape and if you are interested in the role, you can find out more about it in the link below. I'll be working on the report until autumn 2025 and will continue to work with the Institute after that on other projects and to support the new lead author. https://lnkd.in/e4RStxZH

Journalism Today: 🌍 A network of investigative reporters in Central Africa | US press protection under threat | Is AI labelling and transparency a cure-all? This edition features Christian Locka Beauregard Tromp Jodie Ginsberg Patrick Egwu Felix M. Simon and many more. Let us know if we missed anything, give us a like or re-post if you found this useful, and share with colleagues and friends.