"Trying to spot AI-generated content with the naked eye is basically a guessing game, even for seasoned reporters. Itโs necessary to look at the source, evidence & surrounding context to identify these fabrications." - Dan Evon on takeaways from presenting #2TruthsAndAI at the Knight Media Forum
๐ฐ What's a day in the life like for a journalist working for a community newspaper? In a new edition of "Spill the Ink," La Jolla Light reporter Noah Lyons takes us behind the scenes of writing, editing & laying out the weekly print publication that's part of the @sandiegouniontribune.com family โคต๏ธ
โAlmost all of the most viral posts reviewed by WIRED on Saturday came from accounts with blue check marks, meaning theyโฆcould be eligible to earn money based on how much engagement their posts generate, even if the content is false.โ
From @davidgilbert.bsky.social
Heads up folks: @thetnholler.bsky.social posted an AI-generated video this morning that was a deepfake of the captain of the U.S. womenโs hockey team, and they seem to be promoting it as if itโs a real video. So watch out for that and donโt spread fakes.
A social media post reads, โMany of you may have missed this, but the little boy who Bad Bunny handed his Grammy to at the Super Bowl was Liam Ramos! Amazing!โ and includes two images, one showing a young child holding a Grammy Award and the other showing a child wearing a blue hat. The News Literacy Project has added a label that says โFALSE.โ
โ NO: Bad Bunny did not give a Grammy statuette to Liam Conejo Ramos during the Super Bowl halftime show.
โ๏ธ He handed the award to a young actor named Lincoln Fox.
๐ When a claim deals with a controversial subject & plays into confirmation bias, it often spreads quickly: go.newslit.org/SBhalftime
Teen girl smiling at phone, promoting critical thinking in students with a free activity planner from National News Literacy Week, Feb 2-6, 2026.
1/ Teach a different standard of news literacy each day of National #NewsLiteracyWeek with our activity planner!
๐ From zoning information all the way to civic participation, use our free, downloadable resource as a guide throughout the week.
๐ Download it at NewsLiteracyWeek.org
A post reads, โMan isnโt happy after minor earthquake in Toronto yesterday spills his fries at McDonaldโs!โ and includes an image that appears to show a man eating at a McDonaldโs restaurant during an earthquake. The News Literacy Project has added a label that says โAI-GENERATED.โ
โ NOPE: This is not from a genuine video of an earthquake spilling a manโs McDonaldโs fries in Toronto.
โ๏ธ It's AI-generated.
๐ค Some AI fakes look incredibly real. This is not one of those cases, with odd visuals + jumbled text.
๐ RumorGuard post: go.newslit.org/AIQuake
#NewsLiteracyWeek
It's hard to recognize AI-generated content because itโs increasingly realistic "and because weโre all vulnerable to the influence of our own biases, which can cause us to under-scrutinize things we want to believe.โ - NLP's @peteradams.bsky.social in this @startribune.com story โคต๏ธ
Same.
I didnโt try to discount OP, I took issue with some of the replies.
You didnโt provide an example of anything.
And your impression from reading this is that Politico is reporting Vanceโs opinion as a fact rather than his opinion?
If you feel like you have examples of hard news coverage that reports falsehoods or subjective opinions as facts, then be specific and link to it to support your assertions.
Social media research has a conflict of interest problem:
โthese findings suggest industry influence in social media research is extensive, impactful, and often opaqueโ
A real concern is that this may incentivize scholars to minimize the harms of social media platforms
arxiv.org/pdf/2601.11507
The fact is that opinions are not enough. Opinions arenโt possible without the underlying reporting. You canโt have a meaningful, sound opinion on something without a fair, accurate and impartial accounting of it.
This kind of proves my point. When people stop distinguishing between news and opinion โ when they posit that thereโs opinion in everything in equal measure โ then they give themselves permission to dismiss reporting they donโt like, and to substitute opinions they do like for actual news coverage.
Re: SOP โ generally, opinion editors in quality newsrooms are supposed to seek thoughtful, fair opinions that are based on facts and strong evidence โ and which prompt fruitful, good-faith discussion and debate. One could easily make the case that the specific piece in question didnโt meet that mark
Now thereโs a strawman! Of course news organizations are responsible for the quality of the opinions they publish.
But you canโt use the word choice of an opinion headline in outlet A, and then contrast it with the word choice in a hard news headline from outlet B to allege systematic bias.
Others chimed in to say that news media intentionally disguise opinion as news, or make the distinction too subtle for the average person to recognize. So I pointed out how prominently it was labeled as โopinion.โ
I wasnโt merely repeating that it was an opinion as an academic exercise. People in the replies were trying to hold news organizations to account for using the word โlieโ in a headline โฆ as though it were a fact-based statement. It was not. It was one opinionatorโs take.
I am replying to the people in OPโs replies, a number of whom have used this screenshot as an occasion to cynically unload on the entirety of the press โ to dismiss all US news organizations as evil, bought and paid for, worthless, etc.
OK, then people should direct their criticism at the columnist. But calling our entire fourth estate โevil โis incredibly irresponsible and harmful.
Whose coverage are you talking about? Just because you can find the word โmisstepโ used in connection with Trump in one piece, from one outlet, and can find another reference to โlieโ in connection with Harris in another doesnโt mean there is some conspiracy to cover those two candidates differently
How would you suggest holding columnists and pundits who offer their opinions and takes accountable for when their opinions, in hindsight, are off โฆ or when their opinion-based predictions are wrong?
And still, what? What are you arguing? That opinion journalism shouldnโt exist, because โฆ people are incapable of distinguishing between hard news reporting and things like op-eds and editorials? Make your case.
The word โopinionโ appears three times, including in large font, in that one screenshot.
This is the headline for an opinion column. It is not comparable to headlines on news reports.
New: I found more than 20 deepfake videos re-enacting or re-imagining the final moments of Renรฉe Good's life.
These videos mocking a tragic death, which I'm calling "digital desecrations," are the most extreme version of a pervasive trend within generative AI of 'resurrecting' the dead.
From missing fingers to heads that don't fit bodies, dramatic images of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro's capture on social media are riddled with the hallmarks of AI generation.
www.aap.com.au/factcheck/ma...
The irony is...the news report you're replying under--a clear-eyed and damning account of the incident--was published by a paper that is owned by a billionaire.
The LA Times has struggled to maintain editorial independence, and those issues are worthy of criticism, but this is important coverage.
โBy teaching them things like lateral reading, slowing down, & asking questions, weโre giving our students what I call scaffolds that help to lighten that information overload." - Middle school #librarian & author Cathy Collins in this @slj.com piece about the urgent need for #MediaLiteracy
