🚀 New Report Alert! 🚀 AI use among journalists in the Global South

My latest project for the Thomson Reuters Foundation is out today!

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already a major force in how journalists work, shaping workflows, content creation, and audience engagement. But what does that look like on the ground, particularly in the Global South and emerging economies?

That’s a question I have worked on over the past few months with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, and which we answered in a new report Journalism in the AI Era: Opportunities and Challenges in the Global South.

The report is grounded in a Q4 2024 survey of over 200 journalists across more than 70 countries which explores their adoption of AI, as well as their hopes and fears about journalism in the AI era. The findings reveal a fascinating mix of cautious optimism, practical experimentation, and serious concerns around issues of ethics, bias and regulation.

What Journalists Told Us About AI

📊 AI is already a newsroom tool — but most journalists are figuring it out on their own.

• More than 80% of survey respondents are using AI for common tasks like transcription, translation, and editing.
• Yet, over half are self-taught, highlighting a major gap — and an opportunity — in structured training.

⚠️ Ethical questions loom large.

• More than half (53%) of journalists expressed a high level of concern about the impact of AI on journalism, even though more than eight in ten respondents are using these tools. Worries include the spreading of misinformation, issues of transparency, and eroding trust in news, as well as the risk of AI deskilling, or replacing, journalists.
• Only 13% said their newsroom has a formal AI policy — meaning many journalists are working without clear guidelines.

💰 Cost is a major barrier.

• Many newsrooms in the Global South struggle to afford AI tools — a critical challenge in ensuring equitable access to these technologies.

📢 Journalists want better regulation — but most don’t know what’s already in place.

• Many respondents expect new AI regulations in the next 12 months. They hope that this will address issues of access, inclusion, and cost.
• Some journalists also believe that regulation may be necessary to ensure ethical usage.
• However, awareness of existing policies and discussions about regulation is low, making implementation a challenge.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Journalists are certainly not rejecting AI, but they are seeking more clarity about how to use it, better training, and ethical safeguards to ensure AI serves journalism, and the risks that mean this technology may undermine journalism are mitigated.

The report outlines key recommendations for newsrooms, policymakers, and funders to ensure AI strengthens, rather than weakens, journalism’s core values.

👉 Read the full report here.

Note: I used ChatGPT to quickly brainstorm and draft this post.

About Me

Damian Radcliffe is a journalist, researcher, and professor based at the University of Oregon. He holds the Chambers Chair in Journalism and is a Professor of Practice, an affiliate faculty member of the Department for Middle East and North Africa Studies (MENA) and the Agora Journalism Center, and a Research Associate of the Center for Science Communication Research (SCR).

He is an expert on digital trends, social media, technology, the business of media, the evolution of present-day journalistic practice, and the role played by media and technology in the Middle East.

Damian is always a three-time Knight News Innovation Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture Studies (JOMEC), and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). In Spring and Summer 2023, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

His work focuses on digital trends, social media, technology, the business of media, and the evolution — and practice — of journalism.

Find out more: https://journalism.uoregon.edu/directory/faculty-and-staff/all/damianr