LSE’s JournalismAI Tshepo Tshabalala on The Power of Collaboration and Using AI Creatively

Are you a small newsroom or a one-person content creator, and are you, like this episode's guest, happy to fail fast and fail often? You might not have a designated tech team, yet you want to use AI-powered tools to speed up your work and solve certain problems.

Are you tempted to use AI to produce even more content? Pause here and reconsider: might there be better ways to use generative AI to advance your work and develop a deeper understanding of those whom you serve?

We are discussing all of this and more with Tshepo Tshabalala from LSE's JournalismAI global initiative, which helps small newsrooms devise ideas and solutions for using AI wisely and responsibly. I started this conversation by asking Tshepo what kinds of projects they work on with different newsrooms around the world.

 

Main Topics We Discussed In This Episode:

 

•  Why is this network beneficial for small newsrooms applying for their fellowships?
• Quick solutions versus long-term AI strategy
• Examples of AI-powered solutions from different newsrooms
• Common misperceptions of AI-powered tools in newsrooms JournalismAI works with
• Why does your audience come (or not) to you? Do you really know why?
• Ethical implications of using AI in a newsroom: guidelines or no guidelines?
• Creativity versus meaning: does generative AI reduce us to recyclers of meaning rather than creators of it?
• Example of a "wow project" that Tshepo has come across recently
• Blitz questions