A study published in May 2023 by International Media Support titled 'AI, Journalism, and Public Interest Media in Africa', revealed the widespread use of AI in newsrooms across Africa. The study found that AI is being adopted in African newsrooms, with Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) being the most common types. Newsrooms are using ML for fact-checking, verification, transcription, translation, data visualisation, sentiment analysis, and opinion mining.
Across newsrooms
The survey, which involved eight Kenyan media organisations, highlighted how differently AI tools are being adopted across newsrooms. Kenya and South Africa lead in AI use, particularly in well-resourced media organisations that invest in premium systems and custom-built tools. Smaller media organisations with limited resources have either not adopted AI or primarily use open-source tools.
From interviews with some editors, it was revealed that other AI tools being used in Kenyan newsrooms include Grammarly and Quillbot to detect errors and simplify or rephrase sentences. AI-powered Chatbots are being used to interact with audiences and gather feedback. Bing is used for keyword generation and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) while ChatGPT is being used to analyse large amounts of text data, identify and verify key facts and figures, as well as help research and tease out news angles or headlines.
However, some editors are reluctant to use these tools directly, while others are uncomfortable with AI-driven tools in newsrooms. The use of AI technologies in journalism raises concerns about an increase in low-quality and polarising content, which could further erode public trust in journalism.
Michael Ollinga, Current Affairs and Special Reports Editor at Tuko.com, emphasises the need for caution when directly publishing AI-generated content. He explains that AI tools can act as catalysts, stimulating creative thinking and offering different approaches or angles to a story. His newsroom has monitoring tools that flag any fully AI-generated content against established codes. They monitor and counter content manipulation on social media platforms and search engines. They also regularly adjust their content strategies and encourage innovative content creation to overcome the limitations of AI tools such as hallucinations.
Ollinga says transparency is very important and they constantly remind journalists to interview experts from various fields to provide real and fresh perspectives for their stories. He says this is one of the steps taken to protect media freedom and journalistic standards from AI tools.
"To maintain editorial standards, we use monitoring tools that efficiently flag fully AI-generated content that may violate our established guidelines and insist on our journalists to interview experts in that field of their story topic," adds Ollinga.
Academic director
Prof George Ogola, a former lecturer and academic director of the MBA programme at Strathmore University Business School, believes AI tools will continue to bring about major benefits despite human anxieties of losing control to automation. The benefits include increasing people's span of control, reducing human error, and providing unprecedented efficiency.
"The technology still faces challenges arising from human self-interest, weaknesses, incapacity, and fear of losing control. These challenges do not serve the public interest. There is a need for collaboration between digital platforms and news media to improve technology and strong self-regulation to ensure unbiased public service," says Prof Ogola.
Press freedom ensures journalists can report independently without fear of interference from any entity, including government institutions, powerful individuals, or tech companies that power AI tools. Media experts express concerns regarding these technological businesses' profit-driven business model, concentrated power in only a few hands, lack of transparency, and potential control by a repressive state.
Prof George Nyabuga, of the Aga Khan University's Graduate School of Media and Communications, notes that most media consumers find it difficult to distinguish between AI-generated news articles and those written by humans.
"This digital media and information illiteracy means people can easily be deceived by increased misinformation and disinformation. This will ultimately affect people's trust in media and journalism, and therefore press freedom," he observes.
Privacy advocates have raised concerns about the risk of media control facilitated by advanced surveillance technologies. The government's covert online monitoring, often justified as combating disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, and national security-related issues under the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act (CMCA) adopted in May 2018, has been highlighted as a potential threat to press freedom. This legislation includes provisions related to the publishing of "false information."
Press freedom advocates have warned about the potential for media control through these technologies, stemming from the government's covert online monitoring, often justified as combating disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, and other national security-related concerns under the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act (CMCA) adopted in May 2018 to deal with "publishing of false information."
During the August 2022 elections, the Media Council of Kenya reported a surge in misinformation and disinformation campaigns across digital platforms, from media outlets to influential social media users. Foreign entities were also mentioned for using AI tools to spread online misinformation and disinformation in Kenya. Anonymous bloggers, allegedly associated with an Israeli 'Team Jorge' hacking group, allegedly shared fake documents online to discredit the credibility of the presidential election results.
The Guardian newspaper revealed that Team Jorge had previously been linked to disinformation efforts in the 2019 Senegal and the 2015 Nigerian presidential elections by accessing and sharing content from targeted social media accounts without users' knowledge or consent.
In 2017, Privacy International (PI) report disclosed that Kenya's national security agencies, particularly the National Intelligence Service (NIS), had direct access to communication systems, allowing interception of both traffic data and content. The report highlighted the presence of law enforcement and security agents in telecommunications facilities, facilitating unrestricted sharing of intercepted information among government agencies. Additionally, two NIS cybersecurity initiatives were scrutinized, raising concerns about their capability to monitor both content and traffic.
Governments world over are increasingly utilizing advanced AI-driven surveillance technologies to control social media and surveil dissenting voices, including the media. These technologies enable real-time monitoring of social media to identify any indications of opposition or negative coverage toward the government. Techniques involve the use of extensive datasets, keywords, and facial recognition to surveil government critics, including websites, bloggers, journalists, and content critical of leadership and governance styles. Repressive governments employ AI systems to suppress opposing political views, discredit critical online reporting, impose restrictions on major websites and social media, and manipulate or counter online public criticism with favourable narratives.
In August 2020, a website that questioned former President Uhuru Kenyatta's administration on the amount of money lost to corruption was taken down after the platform's owner, Charles Gichuki, was arrested and later released without charge. Authorities have also forced regular online users and journalists to delete content from their social media accounts and websites. On May 27, 2022, X (formerly Twitter) suspended 22 accounts, including those of the #NjaaRevolution campaign, protesting rising prices of foodstuff and cost of living in Kenya. The vague reasons, "suspicious behaviour" and "breaking X rules," raised concerns about potential state interference and the risks associated with AI tools in surveillance and opinion manipulation.
News consumers have also expressed concerns about the potential inherent bias in algorithms that could be exploited for political or commercial interests. Bias in algorithms can arise from various sources, including the data used to train them, the design of the algorithms, or the goals of the individuals or organisations developing them. This, they say, creates an environment where information is controlled and manipulated for specific agendas, leading to the suppression of diverse voices.
Others argue that media outlets are facing a dual challenge: the risk of being replaced by AI and their own political biases. Prof Bitange Ndemo, Kenya's ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium, emphasises the need for capacity building in the development of algorithms. In 2018, Ndemo led an AI and Blockchain taskforce that recommended using these technologies to combat corruption and enhance transparency in Kenya. The report highlighted the dependability of their 'immutable' records. He states that there are efforts to create legislation and regulatory frameworks that specifically address the challenge of governing AI.
"Media itself is under threat of extinction from AI and is more biased now than ever before. We need capacity building in the development of algorithms. That way some of them can be discredited," says Prof Ndemo.