Latest Exclusive Tech Reporting from E&P

Harnessing AI power, the new frontier for news media executives

By now, you’ve likely heard incessantly about ChatGPT. With OpenAI’s revolutionary tool nearing its eight-month mark, there’s no doubt that generative AI is here to stay. But why should you, as a media executive, also invest time to comprehend JAMstack and No-Code/Low-Code (NC/LC) technologies? These essential components, for building a solid infrastructure, may just be what you need to propel your business forward.

After learning from Local Media 1.0 and 2.0, get ready for Local Media 3.0

Local Media 3.0 has been in the making for the past decade, but it's now ready to disrupt the industry with new rules, parameters and tools. And, the media landscape is vastly different. There are no barriers to entry in local media, meaning newspapers, television and radio are no longer protected by their capital investment moats or FCC licenses. E&P welcomes our new technology columnist Guy Tasaka, with this 1st monthly: "Tech Talk."
More E&P Tech "Exclusives"
Cover Story

Content automation and AI tools show promise for newsrooms, but they're not without perils

For anyone in the business of news, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of those topics that elicits emotions of equal parts exhilaration and despair. AI shows groundbreaking promise in scientific fields and medicine, and Big Tech is keenly focused on how to further develop its powers. E&P's April cover story centers on the upsides & downsides of AI's inescapable entrance into our newsrooms.
ShopTalk

Analytics — plus face time — gives journalists a more complete understanding of audience coverage preferences

Journalists who know their audience’s interests can serve them better. In determining who reads their education reporting, journalists interviewed for this article say they place more faith in their gut instincts — talking to people in the community — over digital tools. This mirrors an earlier study of education reporters in New York.
News Media Today

Devices, gizmos and whatchamacallits. A few new journalist tools to try

Working remotely in the COVID era has led to a host of unexpected benefits for journalists. But one of the major downsides has been spending less time with colleagues talking shop. Here are a handful of fun apps and tools that Rob Tornoe uses in his reporting. He hopes you find them useful, possibly even making an assignment or two that much easier.

News publishers make a play for audio and video

Newspapers are experimenting with text-to-audio software that allows readers to listen to stories and articles instead of reading them. Neighbor-to-Neighbor News is one such newspaper publisher. This group of newspapers focuses on hyperlocal coverage and has about 4,000 subscribers. Grant Hamilton, the publisher, says it’s a budget-friendly step to enter the audio space.

Foreign-based cybercriminals target U.S. journalists and media companies

Cybercrime is a universal threat for anyone digitally exposed to the internet today. But news media organizations and journalists, in particular, are increasingly the target of cybercriminals, including state-sponsored ones. A report authored by cybersecurity technology company Proofpoint Inc. looks at threats that members of the U.S. media face.
News Publishing

Some tools for journalists that make information gathering much easier

One great thing about covering the media for a living is getting to nerd out with fellow journalists about interesting tools they use in their reporting. Here are a handful of apps and gadgets (along with one hack and a fun game) I hope can make some part of your job a tad bit easier.
#NewsMedia Industry Tech News

Independent visual content provider, EPA Images, has announced a five-year partnership with Canon Europe to renew and update its photography and videography equipment to confront the challenges in a changing world.

Newsroom unions are also hoping to codify language that prevents companies from using AI to replace journalistic work.
Nearly 200 AI-related bills have been introduced nationwide in state legislatures so far in 2023 — a more than four-fold increase compared to 2022.
Eight newsroom teams from the U.S and around the world will develop products and processes that harness AI to amplify truth and combat mis- and disinformation, as part of ICFJ’s Leap Innovation Lab kicking off this week. 
New comprehensive, global report on what news organizations are doing with AI exposes challenges and opportunities — and offers valuable insights for newsrooms of the future.
Getty Images debuted a generative AI tool Monday that, in contrast to rival text-to-image engines, was trained only on licensed content from Getty's own vast creative collection.
A new, sweeping piece of legislation would force companies using artificial intelligence tools to review the impacts of automating critical business decisions.
“When our models noticed stocks of companies moving in ways that typically indicate news, our system pinged the relevant beat reporter in Slack so he or she could hit the phones and see what’s going on. It’s a great way to break news.” — Louise Story
As some news outlets experiment with automated journalism tools, the mistakes are many, and would get a human reporter fired.
Medill’s Jeremy Gilbert envisions a future where tech leads to better journalism without destroying it.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated much of the public conversation about technology following the release of tools like ChatGPT and Jasper Chat. A MITRE-Harris Poll survey on AI trends, conducted in July, found that aspects of public trust in AI technologies have declined compared to its previous poll, which was conducted in November 2022.
A day of AI-oriented events at the 13th Global Investigative Journalism Conference (#GIJC23) discussed how AI can help newsrooms do their jobs, how investigations have revealed the harmful impact of AI technology on communities — and how journalists should approach a topic often framed by narratives of either hype or despair.