Paul Bradshaw

Why I’m no longer saying AI is “biased” TLDR; Saying “AI has biases” or “biased training data” is preferable to “AI is biased” because it reduces the risk of anthropomorphism and focuses on potential s…

Stop anthropomorphising AI. It’s not “biased” in the way you think.
onlinejournalismblog.com/2025/05/07/w...

Kiss-ass is a great term. I have been calling it over-positivity but ass-kissing is better

2. Learn about in-depth investigations from journalists @theguardian.com and @theexamination.org

3. Hone your data skills with @paulbradshaw.bsky.social and the power of story-telling from @healthequals.bsky.social

4. Hear the economic case for reducing inequalities from @davefinch.bsky.social

Google Sheets has a new AI function — how does it perform on classification tasks? A new AI function is being added to Google Sheets that could make most other functions redundant. But is it any good? And what can it be used for? Here’s what I’ve learned in the first week… AI has…

A new AI function is being added to Google Sheets that could make most other functions redundant. But is it any good? Here’s what I’ve learned in the first week…

onlinejournalismblog.com/2025/04/10/g...

How do I get data if my country doesn’t publish any? Spotlight photo by Paul Green on Unsplash In many countries public data is limited, and access to data is either restricted, or information provided by the authorities is not credible. So how do yo…

🤐 If you can't get access to public data, or information provided by the authorities is not credible, what do you do, how do you obtain data for a story?
Here are some techniques used by reporters around the world

onlinejournalismblog.com/2025/03/25/h...

The blond advantage: fair hair completely changed my life – but is it time to give it up? When I first dyed my hair, the difference in how I was treated made me assume life got better the more you lightened your look. I have now spent years testing the theory ...

I wonder how much fun the writer/sub had identifying when to use blond vs blonde in this piece. Either way, it’s a great example (replace them all with blanks for a cruel subbing test) www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

A grid map showing the regional variation in the changing cost of small caged mammels in the uk.

Further important 🐹📈 data journalism from @louisashworth.bsky.social and cartography from @theboysmithy.ft.com about the cost of small caged mammals (scm) in the UK: www.ft.com/content/f1cb...

Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 25/10/2024 – #FOIFriday – Words + Numbers Post published:October 25, 2024 Post category:Freedom of Information Reading time:8 mins read Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 25/10/2024 – #FOIFriday Scottish public bodies have been warned not to take court action they are likely to lose…advice that would probably apply to pu...

Scottish public bodies have been warned not to take #FOI court action they are likely to lose…advice that could probably apply more widely.

FOI stories that mostly avoided this this week...

Police FOI unit dubbed 'authoritarian censor' Campaigners voice concern as an investigation shows a police unit blocked requests for information.

Important reporting by my colleague Alex Homer on police use of a Clearing House-style #FOI unit.
Journalists identified, potential media attention discussed, and forces advised to withdraw previous response

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It doesn’t look at change, so it doesn’t say they become more distrustful, no - more that audiences assess news critically in general

Spotting false news and doubting true news: a systematic review and meta-analysis of news judgements - Nature Human Behaviour Pfänder and Altay conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of 67 experimental articles, showing that people discern true from false news with ease. When making mistakes, people err on the side of...

Research: people are “better at rating false news as false than at rating true news as true”
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Submissions Open for 2025 Sigma Awards, GIJN New Host of Data Journalism Award GIJN is proud to announce that it is the new administrator for the annual SIGMA data journalism awards, which are now accepting submissions for the 2025 round.

‼️ DEADLINE EXTENSION!

🏆 Sigma Awards 2025

As with previous editions, the award will maintain its no-category rule and will have experts in data journalism from around the world constituting its jury and prize committee.

Deadline: March 7, 2025
More: https://twp.ai/1TaJrR

7 prompt design techniques for generative AI every journalist should know Tools like ChatGPT might seem to speak your language, but they actually speak a language of probability and educated guesswork. You can make yourself better understood — and get more professional r…

I’ve put together a crib sheet of 7 techniques for journalists to get better results from genAI tools

onlinejournalismblog.com/2025/02/19/7...

Ai and the future of inclusive journalism

I’m speaking at this event on AI and inclusive journalism next Wednesday if you fancy tuning/popping in (New Broadcasting House, London)

Birmingham is not just heavy metal How the Arts and Crafts movement merged industry with artisan

Great piece on the artistic history of Birmingham and where to find the buildings that reflect it
open.substack.com/pub/birmingh...

DeepSeek might not be such good news for energy after all New figures show that if the model’s energy-intensive “chain of thought” reasoning gets added to everything, the promise of efficiency gets murky.

“The issue might be that the energy it saves in training is offset by its more intensive techniques for answering questions, and by the long answers they produce.”

www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/31/1...

De vanligste vinklene journalister bruker når de forteller historier med data Datadrevet historiefortelling kan deles i syv hovedkategorier ifølge en analyse av 200 artikler. I den første av to poster vil jeg demonstrere de fire mest brukte vinklene i nyhetshistorier, hvorda…

7 vinklene (angles). På norsk!
onlinejournalismblog.com/2025/02/03/d...

Haha! Certainly whether a presenter born in the 1930s can adapt to a 2020s world.

Fraråder på det sterkeste bruk av DeepSeek på Schibsted-enheter – Betydelig risiko.

Schibsted tells its employees to stay away from DeepSeek www.journalisten.no/frarader-pa-...

Psychologist’s ‘alarming’ views on domestic abuse throw spotlight on… Undercover recording reveals Melanie Gill berating ‘completely biased’ judges who have bought into ‘radical feminism’

We went undercover with @tortoisemedia.bsky.social and exposed the shocking biases of a court expert, whose advice had been pivotal in the removal of children from their mothers’ care

The podcast itself I thought was mostly awful, eg AI repeating stuff/fluff, but that’ll be useful to iterate on. A good example for exploring what makes a good interview too (by its absence).

Now listened. Ugh. A strong vibe of similar people with similar backgrounds. What’s not discussed is prob more interesting than what is. The stuff about not having an agenda was esp naive - also abandons any idea of wider journalistic duty to an audience/citizen (no sense of audience here either)

Will have to listen to that - thanks

Thanks - hadn’t seen that research. Would like to know more about Yle in practice. At the BBC we have to fill out a form for any use of AI which includes what steps will be taken to meet sustainability goals.

What are we talking about when we say the “ethics” of AI and journalism? There are three broad paths in ethics. Image by pfly CC BY-SA 2.0 Many people — including me — are quite uncomfortable with generative AI. Most of this discomfort can be traced to the various ethic…

Are your anti/pro-AI arguments about duties, virtues or consequences?
onlinejournalismblog.com/2025/01/24/w...

I haven’t. Fascinating though. You’ve got notions of ownership (the estate) and (potential) misrepresentation that they do seem to at least address. I don’t see a clear argument against alternatives though (e.g. paying someone), more a defence against concerns. In the big picture it’s a novelty act

Interesting issue.

This is a particularly important lesson for news outlets who use pictures sent with press releases.

From now on you’ll not only need to check you have permission to use the picture from the person who took the photo but also check whether it is AI generated.

What are we talking about when we say the “ethics” of AI and journalism? There are three broad paths in ethics. Image by pfly CC BY-SA 2.0 Many people — including me — are quite uncomfortable with generative AI. Most of this discomfort can be traced to the various ethic…

I like this from Paul Bradshaw on AI ethics and journalism. As he points out, this is a complex and moving field and we all have different starting points about what ethics we are talking about. onlinejournalismblog.com/2025/01/24/w...

AI helps us revisit old journalism territory "Some pivots, once deemed infeasible, might be worth a second look using new technology."

"What are some pivots, once deemed infeasible, that might be worth a second look using new technology," asks @digidave.bsky.social.

The police broke the law to spy on journalists - and that should worry us all A landmark judgment has found that forces across the UK illegally tried to discover journalists’ sources—now we need the full story

“Of more than 4,000 cases heard, [The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT)] found in the state’s favour 99 percent of the time. Birney and McCaffrey are now among the one percent.”
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/the-police...