Introduction
Journo is an Istanbul-based non-profit news platform, dedicated to upholding the highest standards of ethical journalism, financially supported by Turkey’s Journalists’ Union (TGS) and the European Union. With the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into various aspects of journalism, it was imperative to establish clear editorial guidelines governing AI use at Journo. These guidelines ensure that AI serves as a tool to enhance the work of our staff and contributors without compromising the integrity of Journo’s content, the credibility of our platform, or the trust of our audience.
It has been exactly one year since we published Journo’s first story on next-generation generative AI applications, and asked whether DALL-E, ChatGPT and similar tools were a threat or an opportunity for journalists and media outlets. As we continued to cover AI’s impact on news and media, it is now widely accepted that AI technologies can indeed assist journalists by automating repetitive tasks, improving efficiency, and offering new creative possibilities. However, as with any tool, the use of AI in journalism must be transparent, responsible, and aligned with ethical standards.
These guidelines outline how AI is to be used at Journo for text generation, visual content, and other editorial purposes, ensuring we maintain a human-centered approach to news production.
⛩️ Journo’s Four Pillars on AI
At Journo, our approach to AI is guided by the following principles:
1. Transparency: We are committed to being transparent with our audience about when and how AI is used in the creation or curation of content. Whenever AI plays a role, whether in the generation of visuals or the editing process, we disclose it to Journo’s audience.
2. Human Oversight: AI is not a replacement for human judgment. All editorial decisions at Journo are made by human editors and journalists. AI may assist with certain tasks, but human editors are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the content is accurate, ethical, and aligned with our values.
3. Ethical Standards: The use of AI in journalism raises important ethical questions, particularly around issues such as bias, misinformation, and accountability. Journo is committed to using AI responsibly and to critically evaluating the implications of its use on editorial standards and practices.
4. Accountability: As with any content published by Journo, all materials involving AI assistance are subject to our rigorous editorial review process. If AI tools introduce any errors or biases into the content, our human editors are responsible for identifying and correcting them before publication.
We systematically evaluate and select AI tool vendors or techniques by considering these general principles, along with the specific criteria below, which focus on high-quality journalism and alignment with Journo’s ethical standards.
📜 AI in Text-Generation
1. No Publication of AI-Generated Text
Journo does not publish AI-generated text as journalism. While AI language models are becoming increasingly sophisticated, they are not a substitute for the nuanced judgment, critical thinking, and investigative rigor that human journalists provide. Therefore, the creation of original news stories, journalistic analysis, or opinion pieces is always carried out by Journo’s human reporters. AI is used solely as an assistant to our human editors, particularly in the following capacities:
Proofreading: AI tools may be used to assist in routine proofreading tasks, such as fixing typos, correcting grammar errors, or suggesting stylistic improvements. Human editors are responsible for reviewing AI-suggested changes to ensure they are contextually appropriate and do not alter the meaning or tone of the text.
Fact-checking: While AI tools can help identify potential factual inaccuracies, human journalists and editors are responsible for conducting thorough fact-checks and verifying sources. AI may serve as a supplemental tool but cannot replace the judgment and expertise of Journo’s professional journalists.
Summarization: In certain cases, AI may be used to summarize longer documents, research papers, or transcripts. However, human editors are responsible for reviewing and refining these summaries to ensure they are accurate, fair, and contextually relevant.
2. Human-Driven Editorial Process
Every piece of content published by Journo undergoes a rigorous editorial process. This includes:
Human Drafting: All articles, reports, and other forms of written journalism are drafted by human staff and contributors. AI may provide suggestions for phrasing or sentence structure, but the content is always authored by journalists with editorial oversight.
Editorial Review: Human editors review all AI-assisted tasks (e.g., proofreading, summarization, data analysis) to ensure that any AI-generated modifications are accurate and appropriate. AI tools are used to enhance efficiency, but they do not replace human editorial control.
3. Maintaining Originality and Creativity
At Journo, we value the creativity and originality of our journalists, whether they are staff members or external contributors participating in our freelance journalism support program. AI tools should never limit the human capacity for storytelling or investigative reporting. Instead, they are used to streamline routine tasks and allow journalists to focus on more complex and creative aspects of their work. Human authorship remains at the core of everything we publish.
🖼️ AI-Generated Visuals
1. Use of AI-Generated Visuals for Illustrative Purposes
Journo permits the use of AI-generated visuals only for illustrative purposes. These visuals are never used as standalone content or as the primary representation of news events in Turkey or abroad. Instead, they may be used to enhance articles by providing representative imagery that helps convey abstract concepts or artistic interpretations. AI-generated visuals are subject to the following guidelines:
Clear Disclosure: When an AI-generated visual is published, we explicitly disclose that the image was created using AI. This includes identifying the AI model used, specifying the prompt provided, and explaining the role of the visual in the context of the article, such as this one.
Complementing Human Photography: AI visuals are not a substitute for traditional photojournalism, videography, or graphic design. They are used only when suitable human-generated visuals are unavailable or impractical for illustrative purposes. Photographs taken by journalists or professional photographers remain the preferred visual medium for representing real-world events.
2. Ethical Considerations in AI Visuals
When using AI to generate visuals, Journo takes into account the ethical concerns, including the following ones:
Avoiding Deepfakes and Misrepresentation: AI-generated visuals must not mislead or misinform our audience. We do not use AI to create realistic images that could be mistaken for actual events, nor do we engage in the creation or dissemination of deepfake content. The role of AI visuals at Journo is purely illustrative, and they are always clearly labeled as such.
Avoiding Bias: AI models used for visual generation can inherit biases from their training data. Journo is committed to minimizing the risk of biased or inappropriate imagery being generated. All AI visuals are reviewed by human editors to ensure they meet our ethical standards and do not perpetuate harmful stereotypes or inaccuracies.
3. Copyright and Intellectual Property
Journo takes intellectual property rights seriously. For AI-generated visuals, we ensure compliance with all applicable copyright laws, including those related to the AI models and datasets used for generating images. If any external AI tools are used, we review the licensing agreements and terms of use to ensure they align with our ethical and legal obligations.
📊 AI-Powered Data Analysis
At Journo, we are committed to leveraging AI technologies responsibly in our data analysis and investigative journalism efforts. While AI tools offer significant potential to streamline research, process large datasets, and uncover valuable insights, we prioritize human oversight and editorial judgment to maintain accuracy, integrity, and accountability in all stages of our reporting. These guidelines outline how AI can be used to support data analysis, while ensuring that its limitations are carefully managed to uphold the highest standards of journalistic practice.
Data-Driven Investigations: AI tools may be used at Journo to analyze and visualize large datasets to identify trends, correlations, and patterns that may inform deeper investigative reporting. This includes processing government records, public datasets, or proprietary data obtained through journalistic efforts.
Document Review Assistance: AI can assist us in reviewing and sorting large volumes of documents, such as public records, legal documents, or leaked materials, to identify relevant information, keywords, or themes for investigative journalism. These tools can make easier to extract useful insights for reporting. AI-driven data analysis and visualization may also help detect emerging trends, outliers, or anomalies in datasets, potentially leading to new story ideas or angles for coverage.
However, all insights or conclusions derived from Journo’s AI-driven data processing must be verified by human journalists. AI can assist in finding patterns, but final interpretation and editorial judgment must always come from editorial oversight. The use of AI tools for data analysis must also be clearly documented, detailing the specific AI models, algorithms, or techniques employed. This includes the source of the datasets, the methodology used to process them, and how the AI findings were integrated into the journalistic process.
Furthermore, AI-derived findings of Journo should always be cross-referenced with traditional journalistic research methods, such as interviews, archival research, or field reporting, to ensure the validity and accuracy of the insights. The accuracy, reliability, and ethical implications of AI tools used in data analysis must be evaluated regularly. This includes reviewing the AI’s performance in handling data, its susceptibility to bias, and any ethical concerns that may arise in its application.
These measures help ensure that AI serves as a supportive tool in data analysis without compromising the rigorous standards of investigative journalism at Journo.
🎓 Internal Training and Education
Effective and ethical use of AI tools in journalism requires ongoing education and skill development. Journo is committed to providing training for all editorial staff on the appropriate use of AI technologies in the newsroom. This includes familiarizing our staff with the capabilities and limitations of AI tools, as well as the potential ethical risks associated with their use. Technical aspects of operating AI systems, understanding the risks of bias and misinformation, and managing AI-assisted editorial tasks with a human-first approach are also covered. Furthermore, our staff is trained on compliance with data protection laws, ethical standards of journalism, as well as general literacy on AI and data.
Journo also hosts regular updates on new AI developments and their implications for news-making, including data journalism. These updates ensure that all of our journalists, as well as Journo’s audience, which mostly consists of media professionals, stay informed about the evolving nature of AI technologies and their use cases, including any legal or ethical changes relevant to AI applications in media.
🔒 AI and Data Privacy
AI tools often rely on vast amounts of data, some of which may include sensitive personal information. At Journo, we are committed to safeguarding the privacy and security of our audience, sources, and journalists. We adhere to the following data privacy standards when using AI:
Data Anonymization: AI tools used by Journo are selected and configured to ensure that personal data is anonymized or removed before any analysis or processing is conducted. We do not use AI tools that process or store identifiable personal data without explicit consent.
Compliance with Data Protection Laws: All AI tools and practices comply with Turkey’s data protection regulations, including the Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK), as well as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union. We ensure that Journo’s use of AI aligns with the legal frameworks governing data privacy and protection.
✅ Monitoring and Evaluation
AI technologies are constantly evolving, and so are the ethical challenges they present. At Journo, we are committed to regularly reviewing and updating our AI usage policies to reflect the latest developments in technology and journalism ethics. This includes:
Regular Audits for Quality Control: Maintaining a high standard of quality control is central to Journo’s approach to integrating AI into editorial workflows. We conduct periodic audits and peer reviews of our AI tools and practices to ensure they are in line with our editorial guidelines and ethical standards. To this end, all AI-assisted content will undergo rigorous peer review. This peer review system will involve human editors assessing the outcomes of AI assistance, ensuring accuracy, factual integrity, identifying bias or misuse, and alignment with our editorial guidelines. Every instance where AI is used to support content creation—whether for proofreading, visual generation, or data analysis—will be documented and reviewed periodically.
Training for Journalists and Editors: We provide ongoing training for our staff to help them understand the strengths and limitations of AI tools, as well as the ethical considerations associated with their use. This training ensures that our staff is equipped to use AI responsibly and effectively in their work.
Engaging with the Community: As part of our commitment to transparency, we actively engage with our audience and the broader journalism community to gather feedback on our use of AI. We encourage open dialogue about the role of AI in journalism and remain responsive to concerns or suggestions from our audience.
🔎 Compliance and Accountability
To ensure that these guidelines are upheld, Journo’s Project Editor also acts as its AI Ethics Coordinator who oversees the ethical use of AI tools across the platform. The coordinator is responsible for monitoring compliance with AI usage policies, conducting regular reviews of AI-generated content, and ensuring that any ethical concerns are promptly addressed. The coordinator will also serve as the point of contact for any staff members or external parties wishing to raise concerns about AI use.
Journo has also established a clear reporting structure for AI-related concerns. Staff members and contributors are encouraged to report any instances where AI use might have violated editorial guidelines, compromised ethical standards, or introduced potential biases. Any violations of these guidelines will be subject to a formal review process by Journo’s Editorial Board, with consequences for non-compliance, ranging from retraining to disciplinary action, depending on the severity of the breach.
📢 Public Disclosure and Transparency
As part of Journo’s commitment to transparency, we will maintain this public webpage outlining our AI usage policies. Our audience will be able to access up-to-date information about any changes to these policies on this page, which details how we use AI tools in our editorial workflows, the scope of their application, and how we ensure their ethical use.
Journo believes that openness is key to maintaining trust in our editorial practices, especially in a country like Turkey, where political polarization has enormously undermined public trust in journalists. By proactively disclosing our AI practices, we aim to engage our audience in a constructive dialogue about the role of AI in journalism. This commitment to transparency reflects our broader editorial mission of fostering an informed, engaged public in Turkey and beyond.
Conclusion
The use of AI in journalism presents both opportunities and challenges. At Journo, we are dedicated to leveraging AI to enhance the quality and efficiency of our work while maintaining the highest ethical standards of journalism. By adhering to these guidelines, we ensure that AI serves as a tool to support, not replace, the essential role of human journalists in informing the public and holding power to account.
Version: 1.0
Last Updated: July 2023
Contact Journo’s AI Ethics Coordinator: editor@journo.com.tr
