By Sandra Ruiz. Third-year journalism student at ETER.
Experts and specialists shared valuable insights and tools to improve the journalism ecosystem during Media Party, the media innovation conference. Held for over a decade at the Konex Cultural Center, this year’s event featured a series of keynote speeches exploring key topics, including the importance of local media, addressing news fatigue, media sustainability, and the transformative role of artificial intelligence in journalism.
The “Keynotes” kicked off in the morning in the main auditorium with simultaneous translation. During the welcome session led by Aron Pilhofer, a key figure in the Hacks/Hackers community, and cyberculture journalist Gala Cacchione, t-shirts were raffled off to officially launch the first of this three-day free event.
The first speaker was Paul Cheung, who focused on a central question: What is the value of journalism to the average person? This question sparked reflections on the necessity of supporting local news. Cheung is an executive driven by a transformative purpose at the intersection of media and technology. A Columbia University graduate, he is currently the CEO of the Center for Public Integrity.
The second speaker was Andy Tow, who presented “Real-time elections with and without data,” highlighting the challenges of covering provincial elections without data while stressing the importance of perseverance and patience.
The central question of this new era is: “How will artificial intelligence help us do more human journalism?” Chani Guyot opened his talk by asking a question: Over the last 20 years, has the world’s population living in extreme poverty doubled? Most in the auditorium thought it had, but in reality, it was cut in half. So why do we think this way? According to Chani, the extreme negativity conveyed by the media has affected audiences. In 2017, 77% of people in Argentina were interested in the news, but today only 43% are. The solution isn’t to report only positive news, nor should we focus exclusively on bad news. According to Guyot, as journalists, we must shed light on both the negative and the positive.
Regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence, Chani believes technology can be integrated into educational processes. For instance, in an article about suicide titled “He tried to solve his problems by taking his own life,” ChatGPT noted that the phrase was discouraged by health experts. AI has the capacity to review articles and help us build a more human journalism.
Other Keynote speakers included John Keefe from The New York Times, presenting “Covering extreme weather events”; Vanina Berghella on “Sustainability and financial resilience in public interest media”; and Brigitte Tousignant on “How newsrooms can benefit from Hugging Face,” who emphasized that Artificial Intelligence should be viewed as a tool rather than a replacement for workers.
