Trusting News AI Resource: Use these questions to see what your news consumers think about AI

Published on July 30, 2025July 31, 2025 by Lynn Walsh | Reading Time: 4 minutes

You should base your decisions about how to talk about your AI work on what will be helpful to the specific community you serve. What do they understand? What do they fear? What are they looking for?

To help newsrooms engage and listen to their audiences about AI, Trusting News has developed two tools:

• A survey: “Using Artificial Intelligence in our journalism.” Click here to make a copy of our survey for your own use.
• An “AI Community Interview Guide” for journalists to use in their own communities. Find the full the guide here.

We encourage you to use both of those resources. We also recommend regularly checking in with your audience about how they feel about your AI use, along with your transparency about that use. This is a quickly evolving landscape. We should expect both newsroom technology use and public perceptions to continually shift.

Use an in-story survey

One way to invite ongoing feedback is to use an in-story survey. This can be done by linking out to a survey on another page or by embedding a survey within or underneath a story.

To help you do this, we have suggested language and sample questions.

For more resources on how to build trust with your use of AI, review our AI Trust Kit. See more examples of how newsrooms are using AI and disclosing that use here.

Language to invite people to take the survey

The language options below could be added to the end of an AI use disclosure or transparency element, like Verified News Network did in the example below:

“The following article was written and edited entirely by our team — no AI involved. The summary above was generated using Artificial Intelligence to provide a quick overview, but our journalists have reviewed it for accuracy. Help us improve our AI transparency! Share your thoughts by taking this quick survey.”

Other language options:

• Share your thoughts here.
• Share your feedback here.
• Let us know what you think by taking our quick survey.
• We would like to hear your thoughts on how we disclosed our use of AI. Please take the survey here.
• Please give us feedback about our AI disclosure through this survey.
• We value your input and want to ensure we’re being transparent about our use of AI. Let us know what you think by taking our quick survey.
• Let us know how we’re doing by taking this short survey.
• Tell us how we can improve our transparency and earn your trust here.
• We want to make sure we’re meeting your expectations when it comes to AI in our journalism. Let us know how we’re doing by taking this short survey.
• Help us understand how we can best communicate about AI in our journalism by sharing your thoughts here.
• Your trust is important to us. Help us understand how we can best communicate about use of AI in our journalism by sharing your thoughts here.

Sample survey questions

Generally speaking, how positively or negatively do you feel about the information provided in the disclosure you just read?

• Very positive (5)
• Somewhat positive (4)
• Neither positive nor negative (3)
• Somewhat negative (2)
• Very negative (1)

Thinking about the information provided in the disclosure, is there enough or not enough detail provided about each of the following?

• About how AI was used
• About why AI was used
• About human oversight over the use of AI from reporters/editors
• Yes, enough
• No, not enough
• Don’t know

What additional information, if anything, would have been helpful?

In light of the information in the disclosure, to what extent are you more or less likely to trust the story you just read?

• Much more likely
• Somewhat more likely
• Neither more or less likely
• Somewhat less likely
• Much less likely

How much would you say you trust or do not trust information from the news media in general?

• Trust completely
• Trust somewhat
• Neither trust nor do not trust
• Do not trust very much
• Do not trust at all
• Don’t know

We’d like to know more about how you think about Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in general, including AI chatbots, which refers to the use of advanced computer systems to perform tasks such as automated writing or analyzing large datasets. Examples of generative AI tools include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI, Grok, and DeepSeek. How often, if at all, do you typically use AI tools or chatbots for any purpose?

• Every day
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Have used once or twice
• Never
• Don’t know
• I have not heard of these tools

How much have you heard or read about the use of AI in the production or distribution of news media?

• Nothing at all
• A little
• A moderate amount
• A great deal
• Which of the following comes closest to your view around how news organizations should approach AI?
• News organizations should prioritize experimenting with AI even if it means making mistakes
• News organizations should only use AI if they establish clear ethical guidelines and policies around its use
• News organizations should never use AI under any circumstances
• Don’t know

How important, or not important, is it for news organizations to disclose or label their use of AI when doing any of the following — even when reporters and editors are verifying information to ensure facts are accurately represented?

• Writing the text of news stories
• Writing headlines
• Writing social media content
• Creating infographics
• Editing photographs
• Translating text into different languages
• Summarizing the content of news stories
• Generating images, audio or video
• Analyzing data or finding patterns in reporting
• Filling in information in stories created from templates

(Use this scale below to evaluate the above questions) Not at all important

• Slightly important
• Moderately important
• Very important
• Extremely important
• Don’t know

Please use the space provided to share any other additional thoughts or opinions you may have on these subjects.

At Trusting News, we learn how people decide what news to trust and turn that knowledge into actionable strategies for journalists. We train and empower journalists to take responsibility for demonstrating credibility and actively earning trust through transparency and engagement. Learn more about our work, vision and team. Subscribe to our Trust Tips newsletter. Follow us on Twitter, BlueSky and LinkedIn.