Grant from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation will support Trusting News’ work on AI disclosures and ethics

Published on July 11, 2024July 12, 2024 by Lynn Walsh | Reading Time: 3 minutes

The Trusting News team has received a $200,000 grant from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. The grant will fund Trusting News’ work with journalists and researchers to test and develop strategies for how newsrooms can be transparent about their use of AI while building trust with audiences.

Communities are already overwhelmed trying to navigate a chaotic media environment in which credible information shows up alongside disinformation — and the source behind all of it can be hard to discern. The addition of artificial intelligence has made it even more difficult for people to know what’s legitimate, and the need for journalists to get on the record about how they use emerging technologies is growing more urgent. We are hearing from newsrooms regularly that they are eager for help figuring out how to talk about their use of AI in a way that will be found credible by their community. 

With this work, we will:

• Guide newsrooms through audience interviews and surveys to help journalists understand what their communities think about journalist’s use of AI and what news consumers expect when it comes to disclosure and transparency.
• Work with researchers to learn what language, terms and phrases about journalists’ use of AI help news consumers understand how AI was used, when news consumers expect disclosures and the best format for ethics policies, disclosures and transparency.
• Guide newsrooms through creating policies about their AI use and attaching disclosures to daily stories where AI was used. This guidance will be based on our joint research.
• Share all of these learnings with the wider journalism industry through our Trust Tips newsletter, conferences and other training materials and webinars.

This work will be led by Lynn Walsh, assistant director of Trusting News.

This grant will help us build on our work to help journalists use technology to build trust At Trusting News we believe technology, including AI, can be a force for good in journalism. We want to make sure news organizations are thinking carefully, strategically and ethically about using AI while also using it to help them build trust. We believe newsrooms can accomplish this and want to help them explore how to achieve this by focusing on the following areas: Transparency and Disclosure, Education and Engagement/Listening. To learn more about our work in this area, visit our Trust and Technology page.

We have a long history of working with academic researchers who value providing practical, actionable insights to the news industry, and we are thrilled on this project to partner with Dr. Benjamin Toff at the University of Minnesota.   

About the foundation: The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF) is a philanthropic organization dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence and data science solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. PJMF works in partnership with public, private, and social institutions to drive progress on our most pressing challenges, including digital health, climate change, broad digital access, and data maturity in the social sector.

Get involved: If you would like to stay up-to-date with our latest research in this area or learn about opportunities to participate in future newsroom cohorts and coaching related to AI and transparency, subscribe to our Trust Tips newsletter. If you are interested in partnering with us on any of this work or are interested in funding additional work in this area, contact Trusting News Executive Director Joy Mayer at Joy@TrustingNews.org. Trusting News’ fiscal sponsor is Journalism Funding Partners.