Pulitzer Center Update July 5, 2024
Helping Journalists Hold AI Accountable
Applications are open for the AI Accountability Fellowship
“We need journalists to investigate when companies are not willing to volunteer information. [...] Investigations into these systems, investigations into how deeply complicit these companies are, the types of systems they deploy, the types of business relationships they have with the perpetrators are important, and can help researchers that have no access to information whatsoever.”
These are the words that stuck with me after a conference I attended recently. At a stellar panel on “We Are Life: AI Accountability During War,” organized by MozFest House Amsterdam, speakers shared how AI technologies are made, deployed, and are costing countless innocent civilian lives with impunity in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Congo. For me, it reaffirmed how timely and important our work is in the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network. At the same time, it helped me realize how much work remains to be done.
Helping journalists hold AI accountable has been the core mission of our AI Accountability Network since launching in 2022. So far, our AI Accountability Fellowships have supported 18 journalists from five continents. Previous Fellows reported on a vast range of in-depth stories that provided a nuanced look at the real-life consequences of AI technologies. Their reporting has triggered policy reforms, sparked official inquiries, and inspired college newspapers to start their own investigations and student poets to examine AI accountability. Our recently launched AI Spotlight Series, designed to equip reporters and editors to cover and shape coverage of AI and its impact on society, has already trained more than 500 journalists around the world.
Through the AI Accountability Fellowships, the Pulitzer Center aims to support in-depth, high-impact reporting projects that document and explain the opportunities, harms, and regulatory and labor issues surrounding AI systems. The program provides selected journalists with financial support, a community of peers, mentorship, and training to pursue in-depth reporting projects that interrogate how AI systems are funded, built, and deployed by corporations, governments, and other powerful actors.
We are now accepting applications for the 2024-2025 cohort of AI Accountability Fellows. While we welcome projects on a broad range of issues, this year we are also placing special emphasis on certain topics. We are seeking to support at least one project on transparency and governance in relation to AI. Learn more about our Fellowships in our FAQ here. Plus d'informations en français ici, y aprende más en español aquí. Apply here. The deadline is August 10, 2024.
Best,
Impact
Pulitzer Center-supported journalists were honored at the 2024 One World Media Awards in London on June 19, 2024. Varsha Bansal, a tech reporter from Bangalore, India, won the Freelancer of the Year award for her investigation into the impact of AI on gig workers in India. Her story, "Gig Workers Are Being Stabbed, Beaten, and Abused in India," was published in WIRED. Bruno Federico and his Al Jazeera team won the Current Affairs category for their documentary, The Confession, which follows a Colombian colonel's admission of covering up civilian killings during the war against armed rebels. Ian Urbina and the Outlaw Ocean Project received a Special Mention for their investigation China: The Superpower of Seafood, uncovering human rights violations on Chinese fishing ships.
At the awards ceremony, the Pulitzer Center announced a new partnership to commission a filmmaker for a short documentary on climate and labor as part of the Our Work/Environment initiative.
Watch the ceremony here and view the full list of award winners here.
Photo of the Week
“The Human Cost of Sugar opened my eyes to pay more attention, not just as a filmmaker but also as a woman. Looking at girls with sindoors in their foreheads, girls who are never supposed to become women this soon, hysterectomies of mass villages, and generations of exploitation; I can not have a Kit Kat bar without visualizing their dejected faces.”
—Meenal Upreti
This message first appeared in the July 5, 2024, edition of the Pulitzer Center's weekly newsletter. Subscribe today.
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