MichaelWolffMMJ Blog

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Mike Riley - AI Toolbox and Guest Lecture at AI

LIFE WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND AI

Undermining the Public's Trust

AI Imagery such as deepfakes, I firmly believe both undermine the public's trust and also take credibility away from the public's trust. Based on many of the journalistic integrity principles I have learned from throughout my time at Elon. Though tools such as data wrapper and diagram.io will be extremely beneficial for people in newsrooms who are data, enterprise, and investigative centric, I feel, as the Associated Press says that 20% (in my opinion preferably more) should be done by humans.

Best Practices Going Forward for Regulating Artificial Intelligence

With over approximately 2,000 new AI tools and platforms come out on a monthly basis, to me it seems that there is no possible way that 1 individual, government or regulatory organization could possibly be able to keep up with and keep track of what is good or bad from a utilitarianism perspective.

_____________________________________________________________ CLASS NOTES

AI JOURNALISM TOOLBOX 

HOW AP USES AI

80: 80% of process can be automated 

20: 20% requires hand done fact checking 

AI: A Journalists Approach 

Traget repetitive tasks 

AI Tools the bad:

easier to create misinformation and disinformation 

Where is my data going? 

Ai=I Transcription tools and concerns 

Otter 

Terms of Service: allows the company to take and use the data 

Otter, benefits and drawback of transcribing and logging by hand.

(HOW HONEST ARE THESE COMPANIES SUCH AS OTTER WITH THEIR USERS ABOUT PERSONAL AND PRIVATE INFORMATION

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Generated AI: Biases 

ask to write a love story and it will write a hetero based love story 

Asked Stable diffusion to create a picture of an inmate output: is a 

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Where copyrights stand 

Any works using AI may be copyrighted given that the content, piece includes human 

March 15, 2023: Copyright law decision

Copyright Laws of Concern

Fair Use 

allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism comment, news reporting, etc 

MidJourney V6 has cleaned up “tells” on fake images

Discolosing AI Use to Audience 

when of you tell readers that you used Ai to produce something? 

Do you feel readers and audience that you spell checked something? 

Ethics Guidelines from SPJ NPPA, PRSA, TrustingNews.com 

Using the term art director when published to the public in disclosing AI USE 

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Best Practices to Achieve Results and Outputs for Journalistic Settings

How would you like the AI to respond/what you’d want 

Tell the software how to treat me or the data enterer 

Using AI to find databases, with reliable online links? 

assign it a role tell the software to play the role for me

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Databases 

Open.Ai 

diagram (creates visually appealing graph

Hemingway App (cleans up grammar for writing and journalism: software to give you editing scores and to help you write? 

AI and Plagarism detection 

GPTZero

summarize.tech : will sumarize longer-form youtube videos 

video.yo 

open.ai.com

openai.com 

video.ai

Deep dream generator 

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Struggle with verification of official data and statistics, specifically user when user error in inputs.  

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Personal Project Reflection

Now that the first half of the semester has winded down and I have had a little down time to reflect on my own personal story and the process in which I used to create it.

What did doing this project mean to you?

Completing this project, became more meaningful to me as my story development progressed and I was forced to make creative decisions to ensure my project came in at or under time. I decided towards the end of my process to scrap the inciting incident that motivates me to keep pushing and striving to be the best Michael Wolff that I could be very very late, almost a week before everything was due, due to the fact that I came to feel that my struggle with addiction and aunt's cancer death seemed too emotional not just to share with my class mates but also with the world due to the fact that I am still living and working through both of these challenges in my life on a daily basis. This project was really a testament to myself and my family, everything we've been through and my personal development and resilience up to this point in my life, my "swan song" per se.

Did it work out to be what you'd planned or hoped for?

I thought a majority of this project worked out successfully for me personally. However, I though the ending of my documentary could've been improved for a stronger, more cohesive project overall.

Now that you've completed it and seen others, would you have done anything differently for your own?

Now that I have both completed re watched my own and watched my classmates projects. I wish I would have made a clear division between beginning middle and end, and also focus more on my personal story rather than using those around me to tell my story which I ended up not being so successful at in the end.

Final Thoughts

I felt that each member of the class told their story in a different way, and my story fit well into that landscape. I thoroughly enjoyed this project and felt that it made me a more articulate narrative storyteller and will benefit me well in the field of communications and journalism going forward.

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Telling My Own Story

I often struggle to articulate and express myself, which made me incredibly nervous to do our midterm assignment at first, however, KahnAcademy's Pixar Storytelling Course, made me feel way more confident about my workflow when it came to doing this assignment, from the first moment and as each day passed I felt as I I had been behind, that my story wasn't any good, but really who I am lies within the everyday things that have shaped my life in each of its stages, the focus placed on a feeling by the Pixar storyteller in the opening video, Immediately helped me overcome the creative mind block I was facing. This along with discussing creative ways I could approach shooting and structuring this story with my classmates and professor, made me realize that this was a day by day process. I can't magically tell my life story overnight and that this project would take many many drafts.

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Scott Harrison's Personal Story Reflection

Did his story carry you through the complete video? 

Scott's story was incredibly engaging for me, I am an extremely empathetic and caring person and my parents always raised me to give to those less fortunate and blessed than our family. My family has had our own hardships but that has never stopped us from paying attention or notice others who struggle. I myself can see myself slipping/have started to slip into Scott's bad habits in New York City so this immediately grabbed my attention. My brother Spencer has a physical disability, so I have always had a great amount of care and passion for those with disabilities and deformities, and had many friends with facial deformities growing up, when I see something or someone like this it always engages my undivided attention till the conclusion or end.

Was it impactful? Were you moved to a personal feeling or emotion at any point in the video? The part in which Scott showcased his life and nonchalantness towards his declining mental health really really struck me, because up until very recently I was in a similar state myself putting on an act for those around that I was okay and had stopped using, while in reality I hadn't

What part did you feel was most powerful? 

I found the part which showed the transformation that the ship based hospital was able to provide for those with facial deformities or diseases was the most powerful for me because doctors have been able to provide similar enhancements to my brothers quality of life and societal independence.

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Researching Equity In U.S. Newsrooms and Media Consumption

I used our group presentations to expand upon what I learned through my reading and personal reaction "Want to do better reporting, then hire from who you're reporting on." This reading along with our beginning to put together my section of our group presentation made me want to delve deeper on the knowledge and facts that the course reading instilled in my mind. Specifically, that “In Germany about 25% of population are 1st and 2nd generation immigrants, while only 2 to 5% of journalists come from “immigrant families” (Alfred 30). This made me curious as to what the proportion or similar statistics were in the United States, I search and searched, but was hard pressed to find the exact same statistic regarding the percentage of American journalists who come from immigrant families, this both troubled and further intrigued me into this issue. What I found instead was a disproportionate, lacking level of bi-lingual (ESL) reporters working for traditionally english language outlets. Though there is no specific statistic, study or metric to support this, I have seen it first hand through my personal news consumption both for pleasure and for class work. The bigger issue for equity is both media ownership and subscription based journalism. usnewsdeserts.com found that the overwhelming majority of ethnic media outlets (most often but not limited to outlets catering to ethnic minorities in their native languages) are in urban areas, this suggests that growing ethnic and specifically immigrant communities in rural areas far from Metropolitan Statistical areas and population centers are underserved. There is also a finanical barrier in terms of access to quality journalism content. Given that operating on a subscription based business can be a problem for ethnic outlets, whose readers are often on the lower end of the income scale. Median individual income in 2018 was $31,000 for African Americans and $28,000 for Hispanics, compared with $44,803 for whites and non-Hispanics. The subscription based model for larger local and national news outlets such as the New York Times, USA Today and other publications which cover issues that affect lower-income and first-second generation Americans, can deprive these essential communities to our American society and economy of vital information on the state of our country and events happening on the national level that might affect their livelihoods.

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Building Trust: A Pulitzer Center Resource Reflection

How do you build trust with sources when reporting a sensitive story?

In my experience building trust with sources can be the most difficult aspect of my and all of our jobs as journalists, especially with all the reproductions at hand. I would say the best way to go about this is to ease into the interview and also try and prove to the source that you are trustworthy through showing them a piece of your past work but also to make the interview and approach to it more like an introduction and build the relationship through conversation. There is no cookie-cutter solution or answer to building a relationship with a source, in my mind.

What should you do if a source says "no" or pushes back on a question?

Sources may be skeptical of journalists for a number of reasons, especially of collegiate journalists who aren't associated with a press organization, corps or other professional media outlets. This video helped me further realize the value of anonymous sources especially within broadcast journalism stories and packages for television. Specifically the use of shadowing, reporter on the phone with a source from the news-van, field, newsroom, or other workspace. The best way I have seen this done is through a doorbell speaker outside a residence where a violent incident occurred. At the end of the day, each individual has to make that decision, and first respectfully asking someone if they feel comfortable is often the logical approach from a story process standpoint, however, especially in countries where authoritarian regimes and governments rule, the is more than just personal consent on the table between sources and journalists when communicating.

As a journalist covering stories of trauma, how can you safeguard your mental health?

I feel personal mental health is the most imperative thing a journalist must maintain at all times, because let's face it, the journalism and news media industry can be harsh and cutthroat at times for many journalists throughout their career. Not just from a keeping your boss happy perspective, but also from a gaining the respect of peers and colleges. Especially on stories or shoots where sensitive information or topics might come up, it can be easier to go out with another journalists in these types of situations, especially because of the opportunities to learn from and work off each other others identities, backgrounds diversities try and fully understand socio-cultural. The best way to safeguard mental health, I have found is to regardless of what type of story I am working on, whether its hard news, soft news, features, etc. that similar to how the journalists on the call said, its important to establish a self-care and mental health care routine, such as meditating and exercising, personally, I have had a routine of long distance running, weightlifting, and stretching. For me the best way to stay both excited mentally and physically about each task I'm I am doing whether its cold-calling or emailing sources, or out on an interview. As much as we might be able to prepare ourselves for situations in the field and while reporting, especially with breaking news and war correspondence, it really is hard to truly hard to prepare ourselves to go into any reporting situation. Learning to report on stories that involve high emotional and moral weights has to be an evolving art mentally for journalists to handle a modern workload.