West Africa Correspondent of Deutsche Welle (DW), Amaka Okoye who recently attended the International Journalism Festival in Perugia shares her experience and reflections.
First, the festival is what any journalist should try and attend in their career lifetime. It was something I have always wanted to attend and when the opportunity presented itself this time, I jumped literally at it.
Perugia itself is a small beautiful and historic town. I loved it there.
The festival had several interesting topics happening simultaneously and so, you had to decide which to join and which to let go.
I was particularly excited about different sessions and hard to know what to settle for but the conversation on AI and Journalism got me thinking. There are crucial issues raised particularly how we positively use AI in the context of journalism and are we prepared to approach journalism differently moving forward.?
I also pondered on how relevant I am as a journalist with the emergence of AI. What more can we do to remain relevant? These are the issues that remained with me.
AI should lead us to ask what journalism is for. The reality is that AI will have profound impacts on newsrooms and jobs, and we should see this moment as an opportunity to consider how we approach AI and also to rethink what journalism is for.
The consequent issue of job losses as a result of AI was not left out. Lisa Gibbs from AP said ”AI will change your jobs and will make you a better journalist. For a while, we’ve been talking about augmented journalism and not about automated journalism, and that framework remains useful.”
And buttressing the point further Nicholas Diakopoulos who is an AI expert added that using tools like Bard and ChatGPT for newsroom tasks such as writing pieces can be risky, due to the inaccuracies but journalists should or might consider using them for research and analysis purposes. It’s not all bad after all but we must know where to draw the lines
Interesting times ahead if you ask me!
And lastly, for me, Newsrooms need to broaden the ways they think and perceive AI. At a time when new entrants and big tech companies are building systems that may have a huge impact on news consumption, journalists should make an effort to cover and understand the AI industry itself. We need to do some more learning and understanding of the concept of AI itself.
I left the festival a better journalist. It was also interesting and exciting to see some of my colleagues from DW and to see in-person journalists that I have also watched on screen. It is an experience any journalist should aim to have. I look forward to the next one!
I also had quick, brief chats with some like Ruona J. Meyer who was super warm and welcoming. In our few minutes exchange, she lit my candle and she told me something I am holding dear to my heart. Thank you
I am grateful to my colleagues at DW News and my boss Fabian Von Der Mark
