E-Paper
AI summaries can’t protect you from media bias, here’s why
Earlier this year, The Guardian showcased a study that warned of a “devastating impact” on online news media as search results are replaced by AI summaries
Artificial Intelligence (AI) news summaries have become a rapidly growing medium for reading and even analysing daily news. Tech giants have promptly hopped on the trend, releasing new ways of using AI summaries, such as through photos of newspaper snippets.
Earlier this year, The Guardian showcased a study that warned of a “devastating impact” on online news media as search results are replaced by AI summaries, claiming that it has caused up to 80% fewer click-throughs to news sites.
But experts fear that AI summaries can’t be trusted to produce factual reporting. Last week, in an interview on “No Spin News,” hosted by American Journalist Bill O’Reilly, Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis at Media Research Center (US-based), said AI news summaries cannot be accurate due to their dependency on sources that may be biased but are still considered “trustworthy” by the AI. It doesn’t matter if it’s Grok, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other similar AI platforms, they still can’t produce an accurate news summary due to the same issue, according to Graham.
Media bias happens when journalists and news producers become prejudiced, and it can be a common occurrence in mass media; AI can’t filter it, not yet at least.
“The present-day AI can’t filter bias, as they simply don’t have the common sense and general understanding to do so. It will take quite some time to put that ‘bias-filtering’ mechanism in AI,” Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee, professor at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (Dhenkanal), author, and former journalist, told HT.
“It really comes down to human beings to filter bias by using their common sense, education, and understanding about the world and media,” he emphasized.
“Readers can cut through the bias by being more engaged in society, keeping their moral antennae active, immersing themselves in the news, trusting their experienced feelings, and developing better common sense”, he added.
Dr Chatterjee believes that there are two reasons why the media can be biased in the first place, “either they consciously want to be biased and influenced, or they’ve made a legitimate mistake. Not every media group is biased, but they sure can be.”
How to effectively check media bias
Online analytic tools provided by companies such as AllSides can help in deciphering media bias. AllSides is based in the US, but they provide transparent analysis for almost all news companies around the globe.
Earlier this month, the White House announced an online portal that tracks media bias in America, exposes false news, and lists media offenders in the “Offender Hall of Shame,” or “a record of the media’s false and misleading stories flagged by The White House.” It also has a leaderboard of offenders and a list of “repeat offenders.”
