THE Editor of International Centre for Investigative Reporting, Ajibola Amzat has been selected amongst nineteen others to participate in the first edition of AI Academy programme for small newsroom.
The Academy is a 6-week online programme that starts in September 2021 and, in its first pilot edition.
It is designed by the JournalismAI team at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and powered by the Google News Initiative.
Participants according to the London School of Economics and Political Science will learn from industry-leading experts working at the intersection of journalism and AI. Many of them lead AI projects within their news organisations.
Participants were picked from 16 different countries, including Nigeria, Lebanon, Denmark, Kenya, Turkey, and Spain. They work for investigative journalism organisations, newspapers, news podcasts, financial news outlets, and other types of news organisations.
JournalismAI in announcing the selected participants said that the academy will offer FREE online programme that offers a deep-dive into the potential of artificial intelligence to journalists and media professionals from small newsrooms.
The programme hopes to help small and digital-native news organisations leverage the full potential of artificial intelligence.
The programme combines a series of masterclasses given by experts working at the intersection of journalism and artificial intelligence with opportunities for discussion among participants.
In addition to that, participants will be guided through the development of shared resources that can support their organisations’ AI-adoption journey during and after the programme.
The Director of Polis and JournalismAI, Charlie Beckett said the programme aim to give insights and information to augment selected participants work with AI tools and systems.
He said, “Around the world, we are seeing an exciting growth of smaller, often specialist news organisations doing journalism in different ways for more diverse audiences.
But there’s a real risk that they don’t benefit from the economic and editorial gains to be had through deploying AI technologies because they lack the knowledge or resources of bigger newsrooms.”
“The participants are all from innovative and committed news organisations, and we hope the Academy will give them the insights and information to augment their work with AI tools and systems.”
Meet the participants of the 2021 AI Academy for Small Newsrooms:
- Rebecca Appel is audience development manager at TRF News, the digital newsroom of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in London, UK.
- Emmanuel Chenze is the head of data and fact-checking desk for the independent investigative media house Africa Uncensored in Kenya.
- Chantal Verkroost is the fundraising coordinator at Bellingcat, an independent international collective of OSINT researchers, investigators, and citizen journalists, based in the Netherlands.
- Osama Abdelrahman is the social media manager at Mada Masr, an independent digital media organisation in Egypt.
- Andrés Jimenez MacKellar is a journalist and debunking coordinator at Maldita, a non-profit foundation and media outlet that fights against misinformation in Spain.
- Ajibola Amzat is an editor at the International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), a non-profit news agency in Nigeria.
- Rute Correia is the director of Interruptor, a Portuguese digital outlet taking a data-driven approach to analyse cultural issues, beyond current affairs.
- Lee Mwiti is an editor at Africa Check, an independent fact-checking organisation in South Africa.
- Saja Mortada is a data and investigative journalist for the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), an independent training network and investigative journalism centre in Lebanon.
- Alastair Otter is the managing partner and developer for The Outlier, an independent publication that uses data to create public service stories – part of the Media Hack Collective in South Africa.
- Daniel Rzasa is editor-in-chief at 300Gospodarka, a start-up economic news website in Poland.
- Nilgün Yılmaz is an editor at Teyit, an independent fact-checking organisation in Turkey.
- Frederik Kulager is a tech reporter at Zetland, a digital publisher dedicated to journalism as a force for good in Denmark.
- Erlends Calabuig is the CEO of Euranet Plus, a pan-European radio network specialised in EU-news coverage in Brussels, Belgium.
- Dímitra Létsa is the CEO and publisher of Moonshot News, a newly-launched website from Sweden for women in IT and Media, with a strong diversity and inclusion focus in those business areas.
- Sabin Muzaffar is the founder and executive editor for AnankeMag, a digital media and development platform empowering women through awareness, advocacy and education in the UAE.
- Josè Manuel Cuevas is an editor for El Orden Mundial, a Spanish digital platform focusing on international news.
- Rana Daoud is a senior producer for Sowt in Lebanon, a podcasting platform that produces and distributes high-quality audio programs in Arabic.
- Amanda Strydom is the senior programme manager for CivicSignal, a programme of Code for Africa that consists of a team of journalists using investigative entity analysis and OSINT to combat disinformation from South Afrca.
- Arnold Khachaturov is the head of data for Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian media focused on investigative journalism, human rights activism and political reporting.
Blessing Otoibhi is a Multimedia Journalist and Anchor host for the News in 60 seconds at The International Center For Investigative Reporting. You can shoot her a mail via [email protected] or connect on Twitter @B_otoibhi