M4CD – Media for Citizens and Democracy in the Digital Age

Hallucinations, Digital Automation Technologies (DATs) slop, robot news anchors and job losses – these are some of the common associations when one thinks of the impact of artificial intelligence on news.

After nearly three decades of an ongoing crisis in journalism, this may well be another technology that undermines journalistic business models and trust in the news. Our event aims to make sure that this threat will not become reality: we join forces with experts to understand when the use of DATs might make sense in journalism, and how such tools can be used wisely.

The event will include a presentation of the study 'How to Update EU and US Copyright Regimes in the Age of AI ' by Roberta Carlini. She will explore how existing copyright frameworks in the EU and the United States are being challenged by the rapid development of DATs and will outline the main questions raised by the study regarding possible directions for regulatory adaptation.

The team of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom and the International Federation of Journalists will present its research on DATs use and journalists’ attitudes towards generative DATs, and introduce its training program on DATs and journalism.

This will be followed by a keynote speech by Paris Marx, offering a critical take on DATs; addressing issues related to societal reliance on dominant US-based technology platforms and discussing broader concerns around dependency and digital sovereignty. 

Finally, the workshop will conclude with a roundtable featuring journalists, who will share their experiences of using DATs in their work. This will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience, enabling a broader discussion on the practical implications, opportunities, and challenges of DATs in journalism.

Der Spiegel and Denník are two of the newsrooms that are widely praised for the constructive integration of DATs in their workflows and reporting, the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism widely uses DATs to hold the powerful to account and collect evidence for investigative articles, while Display Europe utilises DATs-driven translation to make the European public sphere reality.

This event is part of the M4CD – Media for Citizens and Democracy in the Digital Age training project.

Registration link

This content is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response  (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries. The project is co-funded by the European Commission.