International Journalism Week took place from 3-6 November with this year’s theme focusing on Journalism in the age of drone warfare and democratic decline. CFOM hosted a panel on 6 November that focused on the challenges and opportunities posed by AI in newsrooms. Additionally, CFOM’s International Director, William Horsley, delivered his farewell lecture: ‘A life in journalism; and its death foretold’. The event was also hosted to mark International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists (IDEI).
The panel was opened by CFOM Chair and UNESCO Chair on Media Freedom, Journalism Safety and the Issue of Impunity, Professor Jackie Harrison. She spoke about the threats across the world that journalists are facing at a time of rising authoritarianism and financial struggle. She documented how state indifference to journalists’ safety was having an impact on them being able to play the watchdog role and hold those in power to account. She introduced CFOM’s International Director, William Horsley, for his farewell lecture, paying tribute to the work that William has done for CFOM.
William’s farewell lecture, ‘A life in journalism; and its death foretold’ focused on William’s time as a foreign correspondent and the stories he had covered, including his time in East Asia in the early 1980s when there were a string of countries under military authoritarianism, including South Korea and the Philippines. He noted how corruption was a particular issue and suppression of the opposition was common. However, uprisings soon began and a ‘people power’ revolution took place with demands for liberalisation increasing. This was particularly the case not just across Asia, but in Europe too with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Despite these calls for liberalisation, William acknowledged how there was a turning of the tide in the first decade of the 21st century, in particular. In Russia, Hungary and Poland, for example, there have been attempts to shut down independent reporting through threats and coercion. The Arab Spring and the development of social media were seen to have been a new power against authoritarianism but that was taken away by brute force and more regimes coming into power. And then when the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, further emergency laws were implemented across the world which has restricted journalists’ operation. The re-election of Donald Trump in 2025 has also seen journalists threatened with lawsuits and having access restricted.
All of these concerns point to, As William suggested, a decline of public interest reporting and the direction of travel is the opposite of what we want. While they do not point to the demise of journalism, now, more than ever, is a time when more needs to be done to protect journalists and journalism.
Following William’s lecture, there was then discussion of the issues raised with Professor Bojan Bugaric from the School of Law at the University of Sheffield. Concerns were once again raised about the rise of authoritarianism we have seen across the world and how international laws are being ignored.
In the second part of the CFOM panel, William moderated a panel discussion: Journalism and defence of truth in an AI-shaped world. Tami Hoffman, Director of Public Policy, the Guardian, opened the panel by stating that AI is not magic, but it is important, here to stay and we can’t bury our head in the sand. She emphasised the importance of staff training on AI, but to use it as a co-pilot and not to make decisions about people. She emphasised how the human element of journalism is still of the utmost importance as people are more likely to open up and trust a journalist than AI. She also stated how organisations need to be honest with audiences about how they are using AI and demonstrated the Guardian’s practice of how to use AI.
Ross Higgins, Head of Bellingcat’s Financial Investigations Team, then spoke about how Bellingcat uses AI in its open source investigations. He also showed how AI was being used by certain governments and organisations to create deepfakes to try and influence election, citing Armenia as an example. He stated that AI is a new challenge and because of this we need to know the tools available to understand what we are looking at/reading and to question it. However, he did say that people have become savvy to fake information on the internet created by AI and are more sceptical, making it harder for disinformation campaigns.
You can watch William’s farewell lecture and the panel discussion below or click here.