Getting generative AI right – advice for media managers and reporters

Editor’s note: we are republishing a version of the note that previously appeared as a special edition of The Fix Media’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe to get everything you need to know about the European media market every Monday, along with occasional special reports.

Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza formulated two rules for its journalists on using ChatGPT:

• Prohibition on using it as a tool to write text or as a source of information;
• Prohibition on sharing confidential content to ensure the safety of their informants.

Otherwise, Wyborcza’s journalists are free to use the tool for supplementary tasks like brainstorming or coming up with interview questions.

This approach seems to be a consensus among news outlets who’ve thought about this topic (including The Fix itself). We all know by now that ChatGPT is bad at generating interesting, engaging, factually correct text from scratch – and extremely effective at creating persuasive but totally incorrect text. We also know that it’s great for tasks like language help and idea generation and best thought of as your assistant and companion rather than a ghostwriter. 

But a lot of difficult and interesting questions remain. Is it ethical to use image generation tools like MidJourney to illustrate articles? How to report on fake AI-generated images so as not to amplify their negative effect? What are some non-obvious ways to use text generation tools to make your newsroom more effective?

Over the past months, we at The Fix have been covering various angles of generative AI – how to report on it, how to use it, and how it can impact news media. Check these seven stories to get started:

• AI and how to use them for the newsrooms: policies and challenges (by Alberto Puliafito, May 2023)
• Adapt or die: How Gazeta Wyborcza uses AI in the newsroom (by Sofiia Padalko, May 2023)
• What AI image generators can do for newsrooms (by Anna Sofia Lippolis, Jakub Parusinski, October 2022)
• Deepfakes, GANs and how to deal with them – lessons from the fake Trump arrest pictures (by Alberto Puliafito, April 2023)
• Bing AI-powered search engine: what’s going on with search and SEO? (by Alberto Puliafito, March, 2023)
• Advanced guide to ChatGPT for journalists, starting from the very beginning (by Alberto Puliafito, February, 2023)
• How to cover AI – a guide for journalists (by Alberto Puliafito, May 2023)

Source of the cover photo: https://unsplash.com

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