Author: newswriters

A new book looks at the audiences who never read the news. Co-author Dr Benjamin Toff says that newsrooms must think about fitting around the lives of busy, anxious and alienated people News avoidance is a trend that has had the industry concerned for the last few years. In the last Reuters Institute Digital News Report, nearly half (41 per cent) of Britons said they sometimes or often avoided the news, citing mental health, negative news and information overload as some of the top reasons why. But there is a smaller subset of audiences known as consistent news avoiders who…

Want to be recognized for your science journalism, or looking for funding for your next environmental reporting project? Check out these grants, contests and fellowships, all with deadlines next month and available to journalists globally https://ijnet.org/en/story/9-worldwide-opportunities-deadlines-april

Janine Jackson interviewed filmmaker Rick Goldsmith about his documentary Stripped for Parts for the March 22, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. Janine Jackson: Documentary filmmakers don’t start when the camera rolls. The work involves not just gathering knowledge on a topic, but establishing relationships—sometimes with people who have no reason to trust that a camera in their face will lead to anything good for them. Likewise, documentary filmmakers are not done when the film is finished, especially in the media-everywhere-all-the-time world we live in now. Simply creating something is not the same as guiding it…

By Dr. Vaishali Universities have rapidly adopted technology in recent years, leading to a significant movement towards digitalization in the academic environment. Students are increasingly depending on a variety of gadgets and applications for their academic work, including note-taking and in-depth research. Professors are also adjusting their teaching methods to include digital resources in their classes. However, this development presents new hurdles, highlighting the necessity for instructors to have strong technology abilities to effectively use these resources. Technology’s lasting effectiveness in education relies on educators’ skill in successfully utilizing it in their lectures. The crucial topic of supervising student technology…

Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra The death of Alexei Navalny, prominent opposition leader against the ruling party in Russia, during middle of February 2024 raised concern among intellectuals worldwide. He was hailed as a non-conformist leader both inside and outside Russia within a career of 23 years in politics. In an ecosystem of discouragement of opposition in the Communist rule in mainstream media, Navalny succeeded to reach huge followers through social media. The developments appeared to be a challenge to administration and the legacy media in Russia. To counter autocratic rule in the global level media has a pivotal role to play…

By PETER CUNLIFFE-JONES and LUCAS GRAVES “Misinformation is not like plumbing, a problem you fix. It is a social condition, like crime, that you must constantly monitor and adjust to.” “Fake news” loves a crisis. It’s clear now that false information has played a role in recent events around the world from divisive elections to the COVID pandemic to the conflict roiling Israel and Gaza. It is important to counter false claims and false narratives. And research now shows a lot more clarity about how to do this. In a rather downbeat article in September 2023, The New York Times…

Since OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT was launched back in November, journalists have been discussing its potential impact on the news industry. How many journalists will be replaced by the rise of generative artificial intelligence? How fast will this process take place? Which journalists will be most vulnerable to this kind of disruption? And should we see ChatGPT as a challenge or as an opportunity to solve some of the problems the news industry faces? As all of these questions and more are hotly debated, I spoke to three experts and two startup founders to gain a clearer idea of how…

Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra In the Indian mainstream media ecosystem over-the-top (OTT) platform YouTube was considered as the most influential by the beginning of 2024. Senior media analysist Sevanti Ninan described the trend as ‘post-television era’ in her column published in the English daily newspaper The Telegraph during last week of December 2023. In the post-independence period television claimed prominence after the print supremacy and during the post-pandemic New Normal YouTube acquired the position as a video-sharing platform practically allowing everybody to view or post content free of charges. Sevanti has mentioned, “It does seem like India lives and breathes on…

Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra Soon after the public launch of Artificial Intelligence powered Large Language Model product ChatGPt during November 30, 2022 controversy surfaced on unauthorised use of a large amount of content available online to train the software. The tussle prolonged throughout the following year 2023. Few authors and a photo agency approached court-of-law complaining infringement of copyright of their works. However, the lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan by The New York Times in December 27, 2023 against Open AI, makers of ChatGPT and Microsoft, makers of Bing Chat over unauthorised use of published work to train…

Businessman touching the brain working of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Automation, Predictive analytics, Customer service AI-powered chatbot, analyze customer data, business and technology Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra Collins Dictionary identified ‘Artificial Intelligence’ as the ‘Word of the Year for 2023’. It signifies that the word was most prominently used in day-to-day conversatation among the people during the period. The emerging technology casted its spell over various aspects of journalism. In the developed nations AI infrastructure were built throughout the year in the media ecosystem. Public launch of generative artificial intelligence product “ChatGPT” on the last date of November 2022 considered to be…