If you were scared by the spread of the doctored Jim Acosta video, 2019 will terrify you.
Over the past year, technologists have witnessed entirely unprecedented advances in the field of AI-enabled forgeries and manipulations: from developments in motion transfer to better deepfakes to improved text-to-image generation.
Such progress did not go unnoticed. Opinion pages, think tanks, and even senators have since prophesied the collapse of democracy and the death of truth as we know it. Fake news was one thing, but manipulatable audio, image, and video — as metonymized by deepfakes — would assault the trust we instinctively place in our senses. More engaging and more believed than text, any and all photos or videos could become as doubted as a photoshopped magazine cover. Descartes’ wax would not just melt near the fire, it would disintegrate.
Rather than reiterate these dystopian forecasts, I would encourage newsrooms to treat such AI-generated forgeries as already arrived. In 2018, we saw algorithmically generated audio, image, and video reach unprecedented believability. In 2019, we will see how the public responds when such content is mass distributed.
The public response largely depends on how newsrooms will handle the detection of algorithmically generated content at scale. Last month, The Wall Street Journal was the first newsroom to publicly announce how it is preparing its team for the oncoming wave. Francesco Marconi and Till Daldrup argued that “traditional reporting” is the best way to detect deepfake videos. Certainly, the Journal should be applauded for its prescience and preparation. Yet detecting AI-generated forgeries is not simply a new version of an old reporting challenge. No amount of journalistic ingenuity and doggedness will match the scale, speed, and accuracy at which they will be distributed in the coming years. Instead, newsrooms will need to turn to software solutions — whether built in-house or purchased — for digital forensics. Such solutions will likely include metadata verification, trusted media capture, change level analysis, and public-facing proof points — in other words, the kinds of tasks humans cannot perform at scale.
To be clear: I do not believe that software alone will reverse the rise of AI-generated content. Nor do I believe that any single set of algorithms can restore the faith Americans once placed in journalism. But I do believe that in the coming year, newsrooms will have to turn to software if they want to combat the growing wave and ever-increasing quality of AI-generated content. Media companies can start this preparation by attaching forensic analysts to their newsrooms. Merely reporting on this new threat to journalism, democracy, and truth won’t be enough. To preserve faith in journalism, it will require a combination of software, continued reporting, and heightened public knowledge working against a problem that is already upon us.
Jared Newman is an analyst at Betaworks Ventures.
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Greg Emerson Power to the user
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story