News Organizations Worldwide Discuss Generative AI at INMA Conference; Outline Role in Fact Checking

By Kazuhiko Makita / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

15:22 JST, April 26, 2024

LONDON — Representatives from major news organizations around the world gathered to discuss how to handle the emergence of artificial intelligence and other new technologies on Wednesday at the World Congress of News Media in London.

The meeting was held by the International News Media Association (INMA), which has member news organizations from about 90 countries and regions.

As a global trend, INMA CEO and Executive Director Earl Wilkinson said the volume of online subscription is growing, but advertising is declining, among many other changes.

Wilkinson disclosed the results of the association’s survey of its member organizations. It showed that members increasingly view AI as “an opportunity for increased effectiveness, productivity and efficiency, but it is also a threat.”

Joseph Kahn, executive editor at The New York Times touched on former U.S. President Donald Trump making baseless claims on social media.

“Our view is that, when you have a candidate who does frequently indulge in conspiracy theories or depart from the facts and can hold an audience captive with long kind of soliloquies that actually don’t contain real information in them, we have to do more than just provide a platform for that,” he said.

Khan said that neglecting to cover and fact check Trump’s claims just because it contains a lot of misinformation is not the service that his newspaper needs to provide to readers.