How journalists can bring machine learning into the newsroom

A number of news organisations over the past few years have been embracing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in journalism. 

Machine learning and AI can be used to automate repetitive tasks, generate content like company earning reports, streamline media workflows or speed up fact-checking. But how do you actually apply it to your reporting? Google News Initiative has launched a course to demystify the power of AI for journalists.

Available in 17 different languages, the course was developed in collaboration with London School of Economics, VRT and Google News Initiative.

The machine learning course for journalists focuses on helping journalists understand the fundamentals behind machine learning and how journalists can actually train a machine learning model.

The course covers machine learning topics such as Supervised Learning, Unsupervised Learning, and Reinforcement Learning. It teaches how journalists can assess the use case for machine learning, acquire data, get data in shape, choosing an algorithm for building a model.

It also specifies how journalists can use different tools to improve their model, validate and test the model, evaluate results. Finally, the course moves forward to understanding bias in machine learning. It covers the types of bias, sources of bias and preventing bias in models so journalists don’t report incorrectly.

Interested data and storytelling? Check out Advocacy Assembly’s free data courses.