How does the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism affect the public’s trust in the news? Media scholar Mijke Slot, together with her colleagues Arne van Lienden and Marc Verboord, seeks to answer this question in their new podcast “Prompt: Trust”. The podcast takes you behind the scenes of Slot and her team’s research project, which is still ongoing. The first of three episodes will be released on Wednesday 6 May and covers the first phase of the research.
The research focuses specifically on the audience’s perspective on AI in the news, as, according to Slot, little is yet known about this. “A lot of research is already being done into AI in journalism. Questions such as ‘what can you do with it’, ‘what are the ethical aspects’ and ‘how does it influence production processes’ are often asked, but little attention is paid to what the public actually thinks of it. That is important to know because AI, as a technology, is not reliable: it hallucinates and regularly creates stereotypes. It is difficult for journalists to use it as a source or a substitute for human labour, especially when it comes to public trust.”
Not playing catch-up
The podcast is being launched whilst the research is still ongoing. Slot and her team made a conscious decision to do this. “We believe it’s important to produce the podcast straight away, because it can take a long time before a researcher actually publishes anything about a study. And will journalists and other interested parties actually read the research? Through the podcast, we want to take people along on the journey, explore the impact and be open about it. Because developments in the field of AI are also moving fast, we really can’t afford to wait, otherwise we’ll soon be playing catch-up. Even though we don’t have definitive results yet, we want to share our initial observations in an accessible way.”
From news junkies to news avoiders
In the first episode of the podcast, Slot and her colleagues take the listener through the initial phase of the research. During this phase, they asked various groups of people - ranging from news junkies to news avoiders across different age groups - questions such as ‘how much do you trust the news?’, ‘what is AI?’, and ‘do you think journalists are already using AI?’. Together with her fellow researchers, she discusses what people do or do not find trustworthy about news organisations’ use of AI.
“For example, people think it’s quite acceptable for journalists to come up with a headline or to use AI to search through a very large database. But as soon as AI starts doing things that cannot be checked, such as adding information to an article itself, referring to (non-existent) sources or publishing something independently, people have significant objections to this. We also discuss how transparent news organisations need to be about the fact that they are doing certain things with AI.”
Slot hopes to stimulate public debate on AI in journalism and to reach journalists and (chief) editors who are grappling with this issue in their newsrooms. “It would be great if we could get journalism professionals thinking about the public’s perspective. It is so important to have knowledge and insight into the public’s experience, because all these newsrooms are currently working on guidelines regarding AI.”
Next stages
A podcast episode on the second stage of the research will follow in July this year. It will focus on potential solutions to the bottlenecks identified in the first stage. By that point in the research project, design thinking sessions with journalists will have explored how the public’s perspective can be incorporated into the use of AI in newsrooms. The research will then truly evolve into a solution-oriented project. The third podcast in October will look back on the research, discussing the conclusions and insights.
Mijke Slot, assistant professor in media and journalism at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, is collaborating with colleagues from the JIM research cluster (Journalism, Information technologies and Media use). The project is being carried out in partnership with RTL, Mediahuis and Open Rotterdam and focuses on both written and audiovisual journalism. The project is funded by the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Journalistiek. The podcast is produced by M&G Productions: Nadia Mentzel and Alessia Gebauer. The music for the podcast was composed by Emma van Schie.
Listen to the podcast on Spotify (in Dutch)
- Researcher
- Researcher
- Researcher
