Media Council of Kenya training director Victor Bwire /HANDOUT

Journalists, content creators and media outlets in Kenya have recently on several occasions been found lifting content from others or feeding their audiences with Artificial intelligence generated news, breaching professional ethics and engaging in copyright infringement.

In addition to the professional embarrassment that such practices expose journalists to, such misadventures have seen rise in cases of defamation, loss of credibility and trust in the media, publication of false news and related costs to the media.

The advent of new technologies including artificial intelligence have huge impact of media practice in Kenya. Access to mobile and digital technologies and their increasing application in Kenya have had numerous consequences on media production, dissemination, reception, and consumption.

In the same vein, the enactment of data protection laws and related policies have consequences for media practice and content production.

The lessons learnt from such, especially misuse, misinformation and disinformation, societal disruption, privacy intrusion, data breaches, and bias are pressing challenges that have been acknowledged and navigated responsibly by way of coming up with inclusive models that balance innovation and sustainability through establishing editorial, technical and financial policies, tools and standard operating procedures to get the best out of the innovations and mitigate challenges.

Media enterprises and industry policymakers have come up with innovative interventions to navigate the evolving landscape by harnessing its potential while addressing safety, security and ethical concerns.

Media enterprises must identify the specific business problems that AI can solve and set realistic goals and expectations, and put in place effective strategies for its adoption

The influx of information for journalists, digital content producers and media practitioners presents both opportunities and challenges.

On one hand, it holds the potential to provide valuable insights that can drive strategic decisions for the media sector while promoting innovation in journalist reporting.

On the other hand, the sheer volume and complexity of data can be overwhelming.

This is where Artificial Intelligence for Data connects, offering a powerful solution to get meaningful insights from data to assist journalists and media practitioners in reporting.

AI and Data in action involve journalists and media practitioners using AI-driven algorithms and machine learning techniques to analyze, interpret, and derive actionable insights from large and complex datasets for journalistic works.

The primary goal of AI in Data is to assist journalists and media practitioners to automate and enhance the process of data analysis, making it faster, more accurate, and scalable in carrying out their work.

The Media Council of Kenya has developed guidelines for media training and capacity building on Artificial Intelligence, Data Protection and Social media use by the media, which provide professional guidance for the profession requiring the media outlets and content creators establish in house SoPs on the same.

Key requirements in the in house policies include developing AI systems  that respect human dignity and do no harm to human beings, unless public interest  is involved, when establishing such protocols, they must ensure that there is appropriate oversight, impact assessment, audit, and due diligence mechanisms for the utilisation of AI,  ensure that users are informed when content is AI generated, ensure fair access to information by users, ensure AI generated content is accessed by diverse audiences, don’t allow intrusion into Privacy (don’t observe peoples private lives, property and collects data as per the law ( data protection law of the country) and more importantly ensure that AI systems and products uphold human dignity.

It’s highly professional and highly recommended that journalists and content creators use AI in the many diverse news production processes including generating content ideas, social listening, content translation, headline writing, speech recording, data gathering, fact checking, video/image editing and content filtering.

AI and related innovations have increased efficiency, speed, quality, depth and truth in journalism, but also put pressure on journalists to be professional, honest and responsible in their work.

Content theft and information manipulation are facilitated by such technologies as AI erode credibility and trust in professional practice by journalists and is compromising credibility in media.

Other than in the EU, where they are deliberate legal frameworks and regulations on dealing with the issue of content theft, many countries like Kenya don’t have the technical and financial resources, to ensure copyright protection of creative works including journalistic work.

There is no denying the fact that the online platforms have opened opportunities for content creation, especially for people who didn’t necessarily go through conventional journalism training processes, are good in producing news, very focused and are making money, but remain aloof to basic ethical standards and legal requirement in the sector including contracted works, copyrighted materials and original works where the producers depend on to earn a living.