As part of the activity for the JournalismAI Festival, Nigeria’s Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development’s Head of Innovation Monsur Muhammed’s team has unveiled a new AI tool to help journalists hold politicians accountable.
Muhammed’s team consisting of Nicholas Adeniyi of CJID and Mohamed Anes Mostefaoui and Mohammed Haddad from Al Jazeera (Qatar) showcased KnowYourLeader.ai which they built during the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) JournalismAI Fellowship.
The AI platform helps journalists to hold politicians accountable by providing insights from analysis of the political stances of a politician gleaned from their past publicly voiced opinions and takes on issues. It presents dynamic, real-time insights into a politician’s consistency on topics like the economy, healthcare, and governance.
According to the team, the stances adjudged by this tool are provided by gathering information from statements made by the political candidates themselves via Twitter, Facebook, interviews, Press statements etc. The tool only adopts and screens statements made by the candidates themselves and not others.
The best use case of this platform, as the team has tested it in the last US Elections, is to aid journalists and even voters during elections to gather accurate and concrete information to inform scrutiny of candidates’ actions and promises and facilitate informed decision-making at the polls.
According to the team, the AI tool is currently live and available for use as they continue to perfect it and even employed by the CJID during the upcoming Ghana general elections.
The JournalismAI Festival held between the 3rd and $th December 2024 is a celebration of developments at the intersection of journalism and artificial intelligence. Teams from the 2024 cohort of the JournalismAI Fellowship Programme presented their innovative projects on AI-powered tools while sharing what they have learned along the way.
Some other AI tools presented at the festival include SENTINEL an advanced document comparison tool built to expedite investigative newsroom projects developed by Team IntelliNews and AURA an AI tool for journalists to research complex topics, developed by Team AURA and many others.
