Post-event report by Christos Gavalas, Journalist & Fact – Checking Expert
Copenhagen was the setting scene this year for the ‘World Cup of the Publishing Industry’, the World News Media Congress that brings together over 900 publishers, editors, journalists, and senior news executives from 80 countries and ATC feels honored to have participated in it, once again.
In my first-ever attendance, I mainly tasked with explaining to members of the publishing world how our fact-checking platforms work and what’s the added value of having them in their newsrooms. Truly Media is Europe’s prime collaborative fact-checking platform, an innovation that has been developed over the years and has provided media with a unique end-to-end journey, in the quest for an effective news verification method.
Along with Kostas Vrahnos, who presented the newsasset PLUS (cross-publishing platform) capabilities, we learned firsthand about the longer-term perspectives that news executives have, especially with the onboarding of AI in their daily operations. The sessions were also very informative and gave us an in-depth view of how the media industry leverages AI to enhance its ability to offer better services to the public.
A variety of publishers, ranging from smaller groups to even the most renowned ones, have embarked on the AI bandwagon, ramping up the production of automated content where it feels relevant, a process that also frees up a significant amount of time for other tasks.
As AI becomes an increasingly larger thing for them to consider having in the newsroom, inaccuracies and hallucinations that will likely come as result of it, need more than a human eye to be dealt with. That’s why ATC’s contribution is essential and will be so in the future.
We are securing a streamlined workflow that allows for a collaborative approach in dealing with disinformation, an alerting system that serves as a journalist’s helping hand, regardless of the media type that’s analyzed. Images, videos, audio, and in the near future, text are all included in our disinformation detection and analysis toolset, that is provided to journalists in a friendly and easy-to-explore way.
There is no better time for publishers to realize that onboarding a disinformation detection system in their publishing operations, with journalists being trained on it and constantly getting exposure to new tools, is not only going to save them from falling victim to a potential falsehood; it will also increase their journalistic confidence, taking their storytelling skills at new heights.
Copenhagen was another chance for us to demonstrate this, to develop new alliances, and to get ourselves more knowledgeable about the needs of the industry. And personally as a journalist, aside from reporting, it is always very rewarding to feel that you work towards solving real problems, for people whose mission you appreciate and admire.
