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A celebration of the most exciting developments at the intersection of journalism and artificial intelligence.

The JournalismAI Festival features conversations and case studies that explore the intersection of journalism and artificial intelligence. It is all about using AI to make journalism better. Together.

Scroll down to review all the sessions and resource links from the Festival.


View all the sessions from the 2023 Festival

Fellowship Showcase 2023

MP Interests Tracker is a Python library for data journalists. The research tool analyses who pays members of parliament in the UK, providing journalists ideas for investigations.

Team Niche aimed to develop a tool that allows for articles to be tailored for a local news audience.

Delve Deeper into AI

From newsgathering and production to business and distribution, learn about the opportunities that AI technologies offer to smaller newsrooms and where you can start leveraging them.

What pathways can journalists take to help restore trust in digital journalism? What and where are the opportunities for photojournalism in a GenAI world?

Lightning Talks

[Part 1] During the Festival this year, we heard from 12 brilliant members of our JournalismAI Connect community in our two lightning talks sessions.

Daisy aims to have the ability to use everyday language to query anything from election data, to databases on misinformation and the economy.

TIMELARK is a journalistic research tool that makes complex timelines easy to explore and understand.

This practical session will equip you with all of the knowledge and tools you need to craft sustainable AI guidelines around your news content.

This panel explores how the future of AI in newsrooms might look in 2024 and beyond. How can journalists, researchers and students prepare for what is coming?

[Part 2] During the Festival this year, we heard from 12 brilliant members of our JournalismAI Connect community in our two lightning talks sessions.

BiasBlocker aims to develop an AI plugin for journalists, editors, and media organisations to detect bias and discrimination in real-time, in English and Arabic content.

NoticIA aims to build a framework that enables newsrooms to create AI-powered chatbots based on their content.

In this session we discuss the increasingly important role journalists will play in speedily verifying campaign content to avoid the spread of disinformation.


Programme

Tuesday 5 December

Day 1: JournalismAI Fellowship Showcase

The JournalismAI Fellowship Programme brings together journalists and technologists from newsrooms around the world to explore AI-powered solutions for journalism. 

On the first day of the Festival, our 2023 cohort will present their innovative projects on exciting AI-powered tools and share what they have learned along the way. 

Find out more about the Fellowship projects here.

[The festival will be hosted online from 11am GMT both days]

Welcome to the 2023 JournalismAI Festival!

11:00 - 11:30

Speakers: 

  • Charlie Beckett, Director of JournalismAI and Polis, LSE

  • Tshepo Tshabalala, JournalismAI Manager and Team Lead

  • Lakshmi Sivadas, JournalismAI Fellowship Programme Manager

Using AI to detect bias in real-time in English and Arabic content

11:30 - 11:50

Team: Bias Blocker 

Speakers: 

  • Ipek Baris-Schlict, Data Scientist, Deutsche Welle

  • Saja Mortada, Arab Fact-Checker Network Manager, ARIJ

Lessons learned in localising articles with AI

11:50 - 12:10

Team: Niche

Speakers:

  • Julian Kamau, Project and Digital Manager, Nation Media Group

  • Oliver August, CTO and Innovation Officer, Nation Media Group

ElectionGPT & Check-bot: Making data “chat”-able

12:10 - 12:30

Team: Daisy

Speakers: 

  • Andrew Ong, Editor (Product and Innovation), Malaysiakini

  • Caroline Lindekamp, Project Lead, CORRECTIV

  • Piyush Aggarwal, Editor, India Today

Coffee break ☕️

12:30 - 12:45

Decoding complex timelines with Temporal Knowledge Graphs 

12:45 - 13:05

Team: Timelark

Speakers:

  • Karina Shedrofsky, Head of Research, OCCRP

  • Ian Knopke, Senior Data Scientist, Reuters

Building a framework to utilise LLMs to create AI-powered chatbots

13:05 - 13:25

Team: Noticia

Speakers: 

  • Bruno Fávero, Innovation Director, Aos Fatos

  • Sergio Spagnuolo, Managing Editor and News Product Director, Núcleo Jornalismo

  • Borja Lozano, Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Newtral

Analysing UK MPs’ financial interests 

13:25 - 13:45

Team: MP Interests Tracker 

Speakers: 

  • Clare Spencer, Research and Development Producer, BBC News

  • Juan Ginzo, Principal Data Scientist, The Times

Coffee break ☕️

13:45 - 14:00

Lightning Talks 

14:00 - 14:30

Join us for 6 quickfire presentations of initiatives being developed by the JournalismAI Connect community.

The JournalismAI Academy: Lessons for Small Newsrooms

14:30 - 15:15

From newsgathering and production to business and distribution, learn about the opportunities that AI technologies offer to smaller newsrooms and where you can start leveraging them.

Speakers:

  • Mallick Mnela, Editor at iHubOnline

  • Ika Krismantari, Chief Editor & Content Director The Conversation Indonesia

  • Mite Kuzevski, Executive Director and Head of Media Innovation at Vidi Vaka

Day 1 Closing Remarks

15:15 - 15:30

Wednesday 6 December

Delving Deeper into AI

The second day of the Festival features inspiring conversations and case studies from the cutting edge of journalism and artificial intelligence.

Discover the potential of AI for newsrooms both large and small, discuss the ethics and regulatory challenges of AI technologies, and find out what the experts predict for the future of AI in journalism in 2024 and beyond.

[The festival will be hosted online from 11am GMT both days]


Welcome to Day 2

11:00 - 11:15

Speakers: 

  • Tshepo Tshabalala, JournalismAI Manager and Team Lead

  • Ana Valacco, JournalismAI Community Manager

JournalismAI 101: FAQs, Mythbusters, and AI Tools 

11:15 - 12:00

AI can still feels like a buzzword in newsrooms, with many people unsure about what AI in newsrooms would actually look like. In this session we will tackle some common misconceptions, address the challenges of AI, and equip you with all of the answers you need to feel confident about the future of AI in journalism. 

Speakers:

  • Aled John, Interim Managing Director at FT Strategies 

  • Laura Ellis, Head of Technology Forecasting at the BBC

  • Jane Barrett, Global Editor for Media News Strategy at Reuters

Workshop: Creating guidelines for AI in news

12:00 - 12:45

What are the do’s and don'ts when it comes to writing AI guidelines for newsrooms and individuals? This practical session will equip you with all of the knowledge and tools you need to craft sustainable AI guidelines around your news content. 

Speakers: 

  • Hannes Cools, Researcher at the AI, Media, and Democracy Lab

 

Coffee break ☕️

12:45 - 13:00

How newsrooms can navigate the challenge of AI in elections

13:00 - 13:45

Recent advancements in AI generated content such as Deepfakes and AI-generated voices are presenting huge challenges for election campaigns. In this session we discuss the increasingly important role journalists will play in speedily verifying campaign content to avoid the spread of disinformation. 

Speakers:

  • Laura Zommer, General director at Chequeado & Co-founder Factchequeado

  • Andrew Dudfield, Head of AI at Full Fact

  • Nick Diakopoulos, Professor of Computational Journalism at Northwestern University

Lightning Talks 

13:45 - 14:15

Join us for 6 quickfire presentations of initiatives being developed by members of the JournalismAI Connect community.

Coffee break ☕️ 

14:15 - 14:30

On photography, image generation and AI - pushing the boundaries of what photography is and what isn't

14:30 - 15:15

History has shown us, on numerous occasions, the dangers of deepfakes and misinformation. Maintaining and creating more trust in our news sources and in our journalism remains very important. What pathways can journalists/newsrooms take to help restore trust in digital journalism, especially photography? How can we safeguard the authenticity of photos? What and where are the opportunities for photojournalism in a generative AI world?:

Moderator:

  • Lars Boering, Director, European Journalism Centre

Speakers:

  • Dr. David Campbell, Education Director at The VII Foundation

  • Zlata Pnirovskaya, Free Press Unlimited for Eastern Europe and Head of Prague Media School

  • Alessia Glaviano, Head of Global PhotoVogue


The future of AI in journalism

15:15 - 16:00

This panel discussion will explore how the future of AI in newsrooms might look in 2024 and beyond. How will AI in journalism evolve? What AI skills will be in demand? And how can journalists, researchers and students prepare for what is coming?

Speakers: 

  • Charlie Beckett 

  • Sannuta Raghu, AI Working Group Lead at Scroll Media

  • Chris Moran, Head of Editorial Innovation at The Guardian

  • Ezra Eeman, Strategy & Innovation Director at NPO

JournalismAI Festival closing remarks 

16:00 - 16:15

Speakers: 

  • Charlie Beckett

  • Tshepo Tshabalala

Highlights from the 2022 Festival


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Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

When it comes to gender, race and ethnicity, both journalism and artificial intelligence have a representation problem. Media professionals who identify as women or LGBTQ+, people of colour, and those from the Global South and other marginalised communities, face significantly more challenges in getting their work recognised on the global stage.

At JournalismAI, we recognise this disparity. Our commitment to striving for more equal and increased representation is a guiding principle across all of our activities. In the Festival, we aim to achieve a gender-balanced, inclusive and diverse programme. All speakers are invited as subject-matter experts and are not asked to talk about journalism and AI in an identity context.

Our goal is for the Festival to bring to life the fascinating diversity of thought, opinion and experience in the global JournalismAI community.