AI as just ‘another Indian’

Whew! It’s been a mental overload of data and knowledge to process and absorb on the “best practices” in protecting the truth coming out in the age of generative artificial information. This we got from the just concluded Information Integrity Forum 2024 held in Sydney. The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the Centre for Media Transition (CMT) organized the two-day forum. This year’s forum brought together four senior editors/journalists from each of the four invited countries, namely, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

For the Philippines, John Arrabe, GMA-7 senior assistant vice president for News Program; Arlene Burgos of ABS-CBN, head, Engagement & Partnerships; Mildred Galarpe, Cebu Sun Star associate publisher and yours truly for The Philippine STAR were nominated by the US embassy in Manila to participate in this forum.

At the end of the forum, Alexia Giacomazzi, CMT events and communications officer, summed up her over yearlong preparations for this event as “successfully held in two days only.” She disclosed the CMT worked out a grant to fund the forum from the US State Department.

Our discussions took off from last year’s Forum Report on how Australian newsrooms are adapting to generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI for short. The same report discussed “the impact on the production of public interest journalism and the challenges it poses for the integrity of the news information ecosystem” in the region. 

A year later, the forum was taking place at a time when quite a number of Australian journalists were either laid off or on a work strike for the past few weeks. Many of the striking journalists are from media entities in Australia affected by the non-renewal of their “New Media Bargaining Code” with Meta (formerly Facebook) and Google. This Code was enforced by the government of Australia requiring these two “big tech” firms to pay news media outlets to host links to their articles on their sites.

The Code in Australia actually came on the heels of the “Online News Act” earlier approved into law in Canada. The Online News Act of Canada required all digital platforms to pay media outlets for hosting links to their news articles and stories. Refusing to be bound by this law, the two “big tech” platforms stopped hosting the links in Canada.

As envisioned by the Australian government, this commercial arrangement will resolve the “power imbalance between platforms and news media outlets, and to help improve the sustainability of traditional news media outlets.” Again, both Meta and Google tried to oppose this. Meta turned off news services from Australia. But only for a while, after the Australian government gave “considerable concessions.” Both big tech platforms were allowed to make “closed door” deals amounting to AU$200 million with 34 news media outlets in Australia instead of being designated under the Code. 

As provided under this Code deal with Meta and Google struck in 2021, their contracts are renewable every three years. But the two big tech firms did not renew their deal, citing, among others, not getting much addition to their revenue streams. Thus, by the end of this year, the two big tech firms will discontinue paying these Australian media entities. That is unless both sides strike a new deal before the lapse of the existing Code by Dec. 31, 2024.

 Further adding to the woes of the media industry in Australia is the proposed legislation in their Parliament that would mandate the big tech platforms to take responsibility for the spread of disinformation or misinformation, or outright “fake news” and “deep fake” GenAIs. Strongly endorsed and supported by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), the proposed bill now pending in their Parliament naturally has been getting a strong push back from the affected sectors.

Creina Chapman, deputy chair and chief executive officer (CEO) of ACMA, explained on the last day of the forum that the proposed bill seeks to require the big tech platforms to implement accountability, transparency and to institutionalize a “grievance mechanism” for redress of complaints on the spread of “fake news” and the like. But the proposed legislation, Chapman conceded, is beset with fears and concerns, whether unfounded or not, that it might be abused.

The Australian model was extensively discussed and debated on during our forum with top media executives and veteran journalists in Australia who were invited as resource speakers in our closed-door but on-the-record sessions.

For one, Chris Zappone, digitel foreign editor at The Age/Sydney Morning Herald, argued this might open up new fronts to restrain freedom of the press in Australia. Journalists like us naturally more than agreed that this is a valid concern raised by my fellow members of the so-called Fourth State in the Australian media industry. 

Another veteran journalist Mark Maley, currently the editorial policy manager of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC)-Ultimo, echoed the consensus among journalists-participants at the forum on “self-regulation” rather than giving the government authority to restrain free flow of information. Everyone agreed all journalists have been trained to do fact checking, vetting of information, verifying leads or tips on probable legitimate news stories.

We also exchanged views with Australian journalists Miguel D’Souza and Alan Sunderland. D’Souza is Google Teaching Fellow from 2020-2022 and a CMT researcher for GenAI and Journalism. Sunderland is Board Member of the Local & Independent News Associations. Also joining us was Hamish Boland-Rudder, who is the head of Digital and Product at the US-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). 

We had a good mix of resource persons who included members of the academe at the UTS and CMT, namely, CMT co-director Monica Attard; Marian Adrei-Rizolu, associate professor of the UTS at the Data Science Institute and Corrine Podger, senior manager, Programs and Education of the Walkley Foundation for Journalism of Australia.   

Thus, both professional and academic persons shared the truth on the need to strike a balance before embracing the GenAI phenomenon due to its inherent dangers to “public interest journalism.” One participant, obviously trying to inject humor on AI technology risks, wisecracked: “No worries. AI is just Another Indian.”

The cut-off will take effect unless both sides strike a new deal before this year ends.