Journalism and AI: Reflections from World Press Freedom Day
We explore what media and technology leaders around the world have to say about the state of journalism in the era of AI.
Hey Checklisters,
As an organization that believes in advancing an equitable internet, we have a keen interest in both leveraging new technologies to promote free expression and also preventing the malicious deployment of these tools against a free press.
In this issue, we’re reflecting on World Press Freedom Day, which took place on May 3.
If you’re running late, here’s your TL;DR Checklist:
✅ Newsrooms in Africa are balancing the promise of AI against its potential risks.
✅ Indian journalists from marginalized backgrounds face challenging working conditions.
✅ In Sudan, with the press decimated, AI-generated disinformation could run rampant.
Top Comment
In a direct appeal to governments and tech platforms about the impact of AI on our information landscape, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned against the weaponization of AI by political actors.
“AI-based algorithms often dictate what we see, shaping our opinions and perceptions of reality. Politicians use AI to weaponize disinformation and advance their own agendas,” Türk said.
“States are also using AI tools to monitor journalists and their sources online, violating their right to privacy. This has a chilling effect on media workers everywhere. And women journalists are disproportionately targeted,” the commissioner added.
In light of this, we’re taking stock of what some of our partners and colleagues have to say about journalism in the age of artificial intelligence.
AI influences the African media landscape — for better and worse
As our friends at Code for Africa have discussed, some media outlets are embracing AI tools in their workflows. With newsrooms increasingly using AI for tasks like translation and tracking the spread of disinformation, some worry that these new tools could come with undesirable trade-offs. African journalists are also concerned about how AI data centers — which are powered by immense amounts of electricity and cooled by fresh water — might deplete the continent’s environmental resources.
A media vacuum in Sudan
Citing a study conducted by Meedan partner Beam Reports, a recent article from Sudanese media outlet Dabanga links this year’s World Press Freedom Day theme directly to the dire situation of Sudan’s current news landscape. With most media facilities in the capital of Khartoum destroyed by the civil conflict and with reporters out of work throughout the country, Dabanga reports that there is now a perilous news vacuum in Sudan. Researchers have shown over the years how state and paramilitary groups have exploited social media and AI to spread political disinformation in Sudan. As AI tools grow more powerful by the day, malicious actors could easily take advantage of current circumstances to promote their agendas.
Caste, gender, and press freedom in India
Khabar Lahariya, a division of the rural women-led organization Chambal Media, used World Press Freedom Day this year to shine a spotlight on how gender and caste affect women media workers in India. On Instagram, reporter Jyoti Yadav described how caste-based trolling and dismissive attitudes about women in media have affected her experiences as a reporter. “Why should I give a chance to any man to make me feel this way?” she mused. “I have adopted this rule,” she explained, “I let my work and integrity speak.”
Stereotypes related to social caste also bleed into AI systems. We know this from our research at Meedan, where we’ve explored how the limitations of today’s top large language models lead to a continued production of biases around social categories like caste even when they try to root out gender and race stereotypes.
How can we design safe AI systems that align with our goals?
As AI becomes more and more integrated into everyday life and work, our research team has been focused on answering important questions related to AI safety and efficacy. In a new article for the open-access journal Nature, Meedan Research Director Scott Hale and his co-authors explore the challenges that arise as AI tools such as chatbots become increasingly humanlike. How should we navigate the emergence of deeper, more persistent relationships between humans and AI systems? “By framing these challenges through a notion of basic psychological needs,” the authors write, “we seek AI systems that support, rather than exploit, our fundamental nature as social and emotional beings.”
Contact us to explore collaboration opportunities today.
DEFINE_broligarchy
“Some people are calling this ‘oligarchy,’ but it’s actually bigger than that. … It’s ‘broligarchy.’ There is an alignment of interests that runs through Silicon Valley to what is now a coming autocracy. It’s a type of power that the world has never seen before.”
— Carole Cadwalladr, “This Is What a Digital Coup Looks Like”
Townsquare
June 7
The 2025 African Fact-Checking Awards, sponsored by Africa Check, are now open for submissions from journalists, journalism students, and professional fact-checkers across the continent. Send in your entry by June 7.
June 25-27
GlobalFact 12, described as the world’s largest and most impactful summit for professional fact-checking, will be held in Rio de Janeiro. Attendees address industrywide challenges, exchange best practices, and build collaborative solutions to improve our shared information ecosystem. Register today.
June 30
International Civil Society Week 2025, an initiative of the global civil society alliance CIVICUS and Asia Democracy Network, wants to hear your ideas. The event, which brings together and celebrates global civil society, will be held Nov. 1-5 in Bangkok. Submit ideas for sessions, activities, and more until June 30.
Aug. 26-27
The 2025 Digital Rights in the Asia-Pacific (DRAPAC25) Assembly will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bringing together diverse stakeholders to combat rising digital authoritarianism in the region by collaboratively shaping rights-based digital governance, bolstering the resilience of at-risk human rights defenders, and pioneering innovative strategies through cross-sector alliances. The assembly takes place Aug. 26-27, and fellowship applications, as well as session and activity proposals, are open now.
What we’re reading
“Brazil’s social security institute, known as INSS, added AI to its app in 2018 in an effort to cut red tape and speed up claims. The office, known for its long lines and wait times, had around 2 million pending requests for everything from doctor’s appointments to sick pay to pensions to retirement benefits at the time. While the AI-powered tool has since helped process thousands of basic claims, it has also rejected requests from hundreds of people like de Brito — who live in remote areas and have little digital literacy — for minor errors.”
(Gabriel Daros, Rest of World)
“Threat actors aligned with the interests of the Chinese government continue to co-opt software and applications that aim to assist people whose cultures are being repressed by the Chinese state to attack these very communities.”
(Rebekah Brown, Marcus Michaelsen, Matt Brooks, and Siena Anstis, Citizen Lab)
“Without economic independence, there can be no free press. When news media are financially strained, they are drawn into a race to attract audiences at the expense of quality reporting, and can fall prey to the oligarchs and public authorities who seek to exploit them. When journalists are impoverished, they no longer have the means to resist the enemies of the press — those who champion disinformation and propaganda.”
(Anne Bocandé, Reporters Without Borders)
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