Weekly journalism news update: 'automated journalism', sustainable newsrooms and Newsrewired

Every Friday, Journalism.co.uk brings you a round-up of our week’s top stories, giving you all the information you need to know, wherever you are.

Here is the latest journalism news from this week:

Audience engagement: 'Audience engagement' has quickly become a buzzword in the journalism industry, but what does it mean in practice?

In this week's podcast, we speak to incoming director of co-operatively owned publisher Krautreporter Leon Fryszer, who offers advice on thinking about engagement in a structured way. Listen now

Investigative journalism: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has launched a crowdfunding campaign to take the UK Government to court over its refusal to publish a report into Russian interference in British politics, ahead of the UK general election in December this year.

The non-profit organisation has raised almost 90 per cent of its £30,000 target since launching on Wednesday this week (13 November 2019). Read more

Artificial intelligence: Using AI to produce articles has helped newsrooms save time and invest resources in other areas. However, a report into journalism produced by AI has found its use raises ethical questions and can be prone to error.

As automated journalism is only as reliable as the information it receives during training, it can sometimes result in assuming the wrong pronouns of interviewees or, in a more extreme case, in bias around partisanship. Read more

Also this week, Cardiff University explained why journalism students will learn how to use AI-powered tools to identify and report on breaking news in a new module next year.

The 'emerging journalism' module starts in February 2020 and aims to help produce industry-ready journalists, equipped with technological skills that are becoming standard practice in newsrooms. Read more

Public service broadcasting: The BBC has called on British broadcast regulatory body Ofcom to help news organisations adapt in a constantly changing digital environment.

With broadcasters across the industry facing increased competition, the UK broadcaster is unable to make changes at the same pace because they are bound by "analogue regulation in a digital world", according to Clare Sumner, director of policy for the BBC. Read more

Sustainability: Newsrooms need to adapt to meet the preferences of younger news audiences in an increasingly digital landscape if they are to survive.

With 50 per cent of UK audiences consuming news through social media, emails, and news aggregators, news organisations need to experiment with different models to make these forms of consumption profitable. Read more

Disinformation: You will have likely seen the video of Sir Keir Starmer appearing to stumble over a question on Good Morning Britain, only to be later revealed to be edited to make it appear this way. Amongst the resulting aftermath, any foul play was dismissed as "satire" or "light-hearted"

Alastair Reid, managing editor of First Draft News comments on how different accounts of untruths around show a similar trend to this one, and how satire is increasingly becoming an excuse for disinformation during election season. Read more

Newsrewired: With our Newsrewired conference less than a fortnight away, we caught up with Jenni Sargent, managing director at First Draft, as they launch CrossCheck, a global network to connect newsrooms to collaboratively to combat misinformation, in the United States.

She explains when something becomes viral enough to debunk, how to reach people with a distrust of mainstream media and the language to use in fact-checking misinformation. Read more

We also spoke with chief content officer of Culture Trip Dmitry Shishkin, ahead of his keynote speech at Newsrewired. He talks about the value in capturing the attention of audiences, delivering personalised content and converting readers into paying subscribers. Read more

Hurry! Spaces are running out. To see the full agenda and book your ticket now, visit newsrewired.com.

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