Chris Tregenza

As Sudan’s El-Fasher falls, the world loses sight of its journalists - Committee to Protect Journalists New York, October 31, 2025 — As paramilitary forces seized control of Sudan’s El-Fasher over the weekend, its journalists have become both witnesses and victims of the unfolding horrors.  Over the…

As paramilitary forces seized control of El-Fasher, journalists became both witnesses and victims of the city’s collapse. At least 13 reporters are missing under blackout, others abducted or sexually assaulted by RSF fighters.

“Every hour, we lose another voice.”

Read more:

“I haven’t seen violence like this since Rwanda. The velocity and ferocity of the RSF killing civilians since Sunday is unlike anything I’ve seen in 26 years of doing this work, and HRL [Yale Humanitarian Research Lab] has been reporting on the RSF and the Sudanese war for a while.”

Incredibly grim

Right to protest is under sustained attack in the west, report finds Counter-terror laws being ‘weaponised’ against pro-Palestine groups in UK, US, France and Germany, says FIDH

“The right to protest has come under sustained attack from the British government across administrations and party lines,” - new report @fidh-official.bsky.social

#IDEI2025📢: Since the start of 2025, 99 journalists have been killed. Rising violence against media professionals threatens press freedom everywhere. We demand justice and accountability: fighting impunity is a universal responsibility. #EndImpunity

➡️ www.ifj.org/end-impunity...

We keep hearing about “difficult choices” to justify spending cuts.

Real difficult choices are between heating and eating, paying your rent or your bills.

The government can make another choice, and it’s not difficult: tax the super-rich.

A damning report on how Police in Scotland handled protests about Gaza.

Full report available here:

www.scottishactivistlegalproject.co.uk/from-scotlan...

Oh, and I did the report's layout & design.

Nottingham is on the list:

Tuesday 18th November, 1pm.

An odd day/time but presumably there are reasons.

Some really amazing photos from @tregenza.bsky.social of our most recent rally. Was an honour to host @drjogrady.bsky.social from @UCU.org.uk HQ to hear how our fight in Nottingham is in lock step with the fight for higher education nationally and globally.

ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour Trump ally Laura Loomer took credit for Sami Hamdi’s detainment in move denounced as ‘affront to free speech’

UK journalist Sami Hamdi detained in the U.S. for criticizing Israel. Apparently, free speech is fine… until it’s inconvenient. #FreeSamiHamdi #PressFreedom #ChillingEffect
Trump ally Laura Loomer, who has called herself a “proud Islamophobe”, took credit for it.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

A photograph of a man speaking into a megaphone in front of a banner that says "knowledge is power, university of nottingham, unity is strength, ucu"

A black and white photo of a man speaking into a megaphone and point at god knows what in front of a sign that says "we are the university"

s/o to @tregenza.bsky.social for making me look all cool and stuff at @uonucu.bsky.social's latest rally (he's also responsible for my new profile picture)

Voted! 15,000 jobs and counting at risk across HE. Including now UoN: 350 lost in P1, how many in P2? A failed market sector championed by employers. A derisory 1.4% pay offer, in case we did not realise how staff are valued! @ucu.org.uk @uonucu.bsky.social

9% still trust Labour? I'm surprised it's that high.

Journalistic standards matter if we want people to trust journalists. That includes using current pictures to illustrate current news stories.

I love living in a country where the law about what bathroom I can use is genuinely UNKNOWABLE, it’s like something from a Joseph Heller novel

Describe a character in Greek mythology the way someone trying to defend a politician would. I’ll start.

Oedipus: Like you’ve never had sex with someone and regretted it later

The study is on local news but uses a similar approach to the BBC study. The short-comings of the methodology are acknowledge and the raw data provided much better than the BBC study.

But the key take away is that in studies since the 1930s, accuracy rate in reporting hovers around 50%.

2/2

I've been digging around in academic research on "journalistic accuracy". It's a broad and complicated topic but the best attention grabbing single number is:

"Sources found errors in 61% of local news and feature stories"

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

1/2

I think they will go for "Ditch Badenoch".

Ukraine: Two Ukrainian journalists killed by drone attack in Kramatorsk / IFJ War correspondent Olena Gramova and cameraman Yevgen Karmazin, both working for State-funded news organisation Freedom Media, were killed by a drone attack in the city of Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, ...

#Ukraine: Awful news 🔴 We condemn the killing of war correspondent Olena Gramova and cameraman Yevgen Karmazin by a drone attack in Kramatorsk on 23 October. Only this month, 4 journalists have been killed in Ukraine. We call for a swift investigation. @efjeurope.bsky.social @stommedia.bsky.social

We're fighting on the local level, but it's a fight we are all a part of, across the sector, and across higher education nationally and globally.

HUGE thank you to @drjogrady.bsky.social for joining us today. When we fight together, we win! Solidarity!!! ✊

As to context, in a report about AI failure rates, wouldn't supplying the equivalent error rates of human journalists, or Wikipedia or scientific papers be useful context?

AI reporting on news is an important but nuanced issue and trumpeting unexplained numbers as fact helps no one.

The report notes that the biggest problem was AI failing to provide sources or the use of inaccurate sources. However the prompts used in the study did not ask for the AI to provide sources.

Neither is the number of inaccurate sources (a far more serious problem) separated from merely missing.

4/

The study does provide some data but does not explain how it reached the 45% number from the results provided.

I'm not questioning the accuracy of the 45% claim but one of the key findings of the research is about AI failing to provide context and sources.

Which highlights another issue...

3/

The BBC report is based on this report:

www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Which is the original source of the data and features the 45% claim in its key findings.

However when we dig into the methodology and details of the questions asked, things get murky...

2/

How Accurate is this BBC News Report about the Accuracy of AI News Reports?

Out of curiosity I decided to check that "45%" figure mentioned below and which features in the headline of the BBC report.

Now maybe I'm being dumb, but that 45% number sort of appears from nowhere.

To explain...

1/

I went digging into the original research and found this quote "The AI assistants we tested struggled to differentiate between opinion and fact, editorialised, and often failed to include essential context."

Just wait until they find out about GB News, The Telegraph, The Sun etc etc etc

All Labour had to do was oppose a Genocide, not pick battles with vulnerable groups in society and make peoples lives just slightly better.

It wasn’t a hard task but they failed spectacularly.

The London Business School might want to rethink the name of this course.

www.london.edu/executive-ed...

Palestine: At least 224 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza Ahmed Abu Mutair dies during rocket strike, despite ceasefire

The death toll of media workers who have died during the war in Gaza has increased to 224 following the death of Ahmed Abu Mutair. He was killed during a rocket strike whilst working as an engineer for Palestine Media Production for the German public broadcaster ZDF www.nuj.org.uk/resource/pal...

I could write 10,000 words on this shirts semiotics and how the far-right measures patriotism by quantity not quality.

Photo from Lincoln's small "Unite The Right" demo and the much larger counter-protest.

Full gallery: tregenza.com/lincoln-unit...