JournalismAI is offering a crash online course next week on how AI journalism is revolutionizing the news industry – absolutely free.
The event, dubbed JournalismAI Festival 2020, runs five days – Dec. 7 – 11 – and is free to attend for anyone who signs-up for the JournalismAI newsletter.
A major bonus: The event organizers are also promising to post video recordings of all the sessions on YouTube.
So if you miss one or more sessions next week, you’ll still be able to check them out on YouTube in coming weeks.
The fest features a number of key players in AI journalism from across the globe who are helping to shape the future of news.
Among the presenters are a number of pioneering organizations of the tech, including the Associated Press, Bloomberg, BBC News, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Schibsted, the South China Morning Post and the Washington Post.
Specific heavy hitter speakers to be featured include:
~Charlie Beckett, director of JournalismAI. Beckett is also founding director of POLIS, a journalism think-tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Beckett is author of an in-depth study released last fall, “New powers, New Responsibilities. A global survey of journalism and artificial intelligence.”
~Nick Diakopoulos, associate professor in communication studies and computer science, Northwestern University.
Diakopoulos has been a key pioneer in the introduction of AI and automation into newsrooms. This past year, he worked in part at the Washington Post to develop ways to automate coverage of the U.S. presidential election.
~Lisa Gibbs, director of news partnerships & AI news lead, The Associated Press.
Gibbs has been the driving force behind a number of AI journalism implementations and partnerships at The Associated Press — which date back to 2014.
Her primary role is to find ways to automate the writing of news stories at the news organization.
For complete details on all the speakers, check out the fest’s online bios page.
The digital event is being squired by POLIS and the Google News Initiative.
All sessions are on London Time — or Greenwhich Mean Time.
So you’ll need a time converter to see when they’ll be popping up on your spot on the globe.
A good place to get acquainted with all the AI journalism fest will offer will be at its first session, Dec. 7: “Welcome to the JournalismAI Festival! Everything you want to know about what we do and a field-guide to enjoy the week.”
Sessions for JournalismAI Festival 2020 break into two major categories:
~Close-ups on how AI is being used to automate writing at news organizations
~Close-ups offering insight into how AI is being used to automate or enhance other processes at news organizations.
Here are the sessions that promise to offer the most insight into how AI is automating the writing of news:
*Creating new story formats from existing text articles using automation
Wednesday, December 9, 2020, 2 p.m. — 3 p.m., GMT
A number of news organizations are using AI and similar tools to repackage articles in other formats in an effort to reach wider audiences and also get more mileage from each article created.
BBC News Labs, the presenter at this session, is heavily involved in automated journalism repackaging.
It has developed several tools that mine articles for ‘semi-automated assembly’ into new digital news products.
Those new formats include:
~graphical stories
~bullet-point summaries
~captioned image stories
Two experts specializing in the repackaging of news at the BBC will be featured in this session.
They’ll talk about the tools they’ve chosen to do the repackaging and how they work technically and editorially.
And they’ll examine how the tools might be used as part of the BBC’s new modular content management system.
Speakers:
~Conor Molumby
Senior Journalist
BBC News Labs
~David Caswell
Executive Product Manager
BBC News Labs
*Inside the newsroom: How AI is becoming an integral part of the news-making process
Tuesday, December 8, 2020, 2 p.m. — 3 p.m., GMT
Besides automating writing at major news organizations, AI is also being used to gather and distribute news.
This session focuses on AI journalism tools early adopter news organizations are using to enhance virtually every aspect of newsgathering and production.
Representatives of two organizations that helped pioneer AI journalism – The Associated Press and Bloomberg – are featured.
Speakers:
~Lisa Gibbs
Director of News Partnerships & AI News Lead
The Associated Press
~Emma V. O’Brian
Chief of Staff for Breaking News & Markets
Bloomberg
Moderator:
~Charlie Beckett
Director of JournalismAI, Founding Director POLIS
*Looking at the big picture: What difference will AI make to the future of journalism?
Friday, December 11, 2020, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m., GMT
As the newsroom is increasingly automated by AI and similar technologies, writers and others wonder where this is all heading.
What, many wonder, will the typical newsroom look like in five years?
This session focuses on answering those questions by highlighting the major trends expected to evolve in AI journalism during the next few years.
Speakers will also take a look at the big research questions that need to be solved.
Session participants will also detail how journalists will be interacting with news algorithms in coming years.
Speakers:
~Alexandra Borchardt
Head of Digital Journalism Fellowship
Hamburg Media School
~Anita Zielina
Director of Strategic Initiatives
Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism
~Nick Diakopoulos – Associate Professor in Communication Studies and Computer Science, Northwestern University
Moderator:
~Charlie Beckett
Director of JournalismAI, Founding Director POLIS
*Interdisciplinary teams working on AI projects: Learnings from the BR AI + Automation Lab
Friday, December 11, 2020, 2 p.m. — 3 p.m., GMT
This session offers a case study look at how AI is automating news writing at Bayerischer Rundfunk, a public-service radio and television broadcaster based in Germany.
The speakers will delve into how they’re using AI with Alexa.
Plus, they’ll talk on how they’re assembling interdisciplinary teams within Bayerischer Rundfunk to proliferate the use of AI throughout the news organization.
Speakers:
~Uli Köppen
Head of AI + Automation Lab
Bayerischer Rundfunk
~Cécile Schneider
Product Manager
AI + Automation Lab
Bayerischer Rundfunk
How might automated summaries help us increase discoverability and accessibility of the very best journalism we produce?
Friday, December 11, 2020, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m., GMT
One of the most prized pieces of content at a news site is the ‘evergreen article’: the story with legs that remains relevant despite the passage of time.
Speakers in this session will offer insight into how AI can be used to auto-summarize evergreen articles so that readers and journalists have easy access to the content – months or even years after the story is written.
Speakers:
*Christina Elmer
Deputy Head of Editorial R&D
Der Spiegel
*Olle Zachrison
Head of Digital News Development
Swedish Radio
*Can AI help us put the power of our archives in the hands of our journalists?
Wednesday, December 9, 2020, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m., GMT
Some writers are using AI journalism tools to automatically pull-up archived stories that offer background and insight on the piece they’re working on.
It’s an innovative service that’s a great aid to writers looking to frame how a story has evolved over time.
Two news organizations — La Nación and Altinget — will share insight in this session on how these tools can be incorporated into a newsroom.
Speakers:
~Florencia Coelho
New Media Research & Training Manager
La Nación
~Kristoffer Hecquet
Head of Development
Altinget
Here are the sessions designed to offer insight into other ways AI is automating and enhancing newsroom processes. These include:
*How journalists can use machine learning to enhance their reporting
Wednesday, December 9, 2020, 11 p.m. — 12 p.m., GMT
This is a perfect session for writers and others looking for a quick study on what machine learning is, how it works and how it can be used responsibly to enhance news production.
Fest organizers promise the sessions will answer all the questions ‘you never dared to ask’ about machine learning.
Plus, session speakers will share concrete examples of how journalists are using machine learning to find and report powerful new stories and investigations.
Speakers:
~Samya Ayish
News Lab Teaching Fellow
Google News Initiative
~Anatoliy Bondarenko
Deputy Editor-in-Chief & Head of Data Journalism
Texty
~Mattia Peretti
JournalismAI Manager
POLIS
*A journalism career with AI or an AI career in journalism?
Thursday, December 10, 2020 2 p.m. – 3 p.m., GMT
While some writers fear AI journalism will steal their jobs, many AI innovators insist the tech is opening-up new career pathways in news.
This session will focus on the new job opportunities AI is bringing to journalism, as perceived by innovators already working in some of those positions.
Speakers:
~Alyssa Zeisler
R&D Chief and Product Lead for Editorial Tools
The Wall Street Journal
~Anna Vissens
Lead Data Scientist
The Guardian
Moderator:
~Jane Barrett
Global Editor for Media News Strategy
Reuters
*What we have learned from helping newsrooms to work together on developing innovative AI-powered solutions?
Monday, December 7, 2020, 2 p.m – 3 p.m., GMT
One of the primary driving forces behind JournalismAI is the belief that teams of newsroom AI technologists — collaborating together — can come up with new insights and new strategies that might not surface if they’re working independently.
More that 20 members of JournalismAI tested this theory earlier in 2020, working in teams to:
~Develop new applications of AI journalism
~Explore how AI can be used to mitigate newsroom bias
~Experiment with AI to gamify user engagement with the news
This session offers insight into the fruits of those efforts.
Speakers:
~Ana Jakimovska
Chief Product Officer
Culture Trip
~Dmitry Shishkin
Independent digital consultant
~Jeremy Gilbert
Knight Chair for Digital Media Strategy, Northwestern University Medill School
*How might we leverage AI to understand, identify and mitigate newsroom biases?
Tuesday, December 8, 2020, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m., GMT
With so many news organizations focused on ensuring their workplaces – as well as their work product – supports diversity and inclusion – it’s no surprise some technologists are looking to use AI journalism tools to further those goals.
This session focuses on how the tech can be used to foster diversity and inclusion.
Plus, it will include tips on how to incorporate specific diversity and inclusion approaches and tactics into common work practices.
Speakers:
~Agnes Stenbom
Responsible Data & AI Specialist
Schibsted
~Issei Mori
Computer Science Intern
Nikkei
*How your newsroom might use AI to increase loyalty in your audiences
Thursday, December 10, 2020, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m., GMT
Media companies are discovering the importance of reaching a deeper understanding of their audiences and the opportunities that exist in deeper relationships with readers.
This session focuses on how news organizations can develop an overarching strategy to incorporate human and AI elements by defining the transactional opportunities of loyalty and audience engagement.
Speakers:
~Alison Gow
Audience and Content Director
North West, Reach Plc
~Korey Lee
VP of Data
South China Morning Post
~Romain Rouquier
Director of Data
South China Morning Post
*How to understand and engage with your customers using AI & ML
Tuesday, December 8, 2020, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m, GMT
This session offers insight into how The South China Morning Post is using machine learning and AI to understand and engage its readers.
Essentially, AI journalism tools are being used by the Post to study, analyze and act on data drawn from reader surveys, quizzes, polls and other tools.
Working in tandem, those tactics help the news organization provide content of maximum value to its readers.
Other approaches the Post used to study readers included heavily incentivizing users to login to its news site and reducing its reliance on digital cookies.
Speaker:
~Korey Lee
VP of Data
South China Morning Post
*Pinpoint: a new AI-driven search tool for journalists working on large document sets
Thursday, December 10, 2020, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m., GMT
This session offers an up-close look at Pinpoint, a new AI-powered tool from Google that enables journalists to pinpoint specific insights amidst a sea of data.
Essentially, the search tool can race through all sorts of files – .PDFs, photos, emails and audio – to home-in on the specific data a journalist is looking to unearth from those files.
Pinpoint can also ‘read’ handwriting and convert audio recordings of interviews for easy analysis and search.
Plus, it also incorporates Google Search.
Pinpoint is part of Google’s Journalist Studio, a collection of tools designed to empower journalists to do their work more efficiently, creatively, and securely.
Speakers:
~Megan H. Chan
News Ecosystem Lead
Google News Initiative
~Elite Truong
Director of Strategic Initiatives
The Washington Post
*How we built an algorithm that helps us investigate government contracts and unveil corruption cases in Peru
Monday, December 7, 2020, 4 p.m.- 5 p.m., GMT
Turns out, AI journalism tools are very good at digging through massive databases for investigative journalists to automatically discover insights for news stories and investigations.
This session focuses on an AI tool developed by Peruvian newsroom Ojo Público, designed to expose corruption in public contracting.
The algorithm, dubbed Funes, drew on expertise from academics and newsroom pros for its development.
This session will focus on how Funes held-up during an investigation, including:
~How output from Funes was interpreted
~How Funes’ findings were validated
~How Funes’ reliability was evaluated, in terms of cases of corruption identified and cases of corruption missed
Speaker:
*Gianfranco Rossi
Software Developer
Ojo Público
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