Set amidst the bustling city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 15 minutes away from the majestic Petronas Twin Towers, nearly 40 fellows came together at The Kuala Lumpur Journal Hotel on 15 October 2024.
The festivities kickstarted during the welcome dinner at Malai Thai with flavours and cuisines inspired from Thailand, including the fellows’ favoured choice of khao niao mamuang, mango sticky rice. After an evening of food and fun, the participants called it a day.
Day 1
The first day of the conference began with an introductory address by Lisa Wlaschek, the project manager of KAS Media Programme Asia. She was followed by Ansgar Graw, the director of KAS Media Programme Asia, who formally opened the 2024 Adenauer Media Leaders Academy and encouraged everyone to ‘celebrate AMLA 2024’. Finally, Miriam Fischer, the director of KAS Foundation Office Malaysia, welcomed everyone to the beautiful country.
The floor was now open for the first speaker. Shahzeb Ahmed Hashim, a lecturer at the Centre for Excellence in Journalism, IBA Pakistan, and the editor at Dawn.com began his presentation by playing a couple of songs produced by him via artificial intelligence in only thirty seconds. This aptly captured his topic of discussion: ‘AI in Journalism: Trends, Ethics, and Applications’.
To begin with, Shahzeb highlighted the biases of AI—including gender bias—and misinformation. ‘AI is so desperate to help you sometimes that it makes up things,’ he said. But speaking in support of the technology, he said that AI is shaping up to be an equaliser, minimising the linguistic barriers.
Coming to the intersection of AI and journalism, he argued that ‘AI is a great storyteller, so great that it blurs the line between fact and fiction. So, it can’t be a journalist.’ Speaking as an editor of Dawn.com, Shahzeb explained that he identifies AI-written content by checking for excess use of conjunctions like ‘furthermore’, ‘moreover’, etc. Interestingly, he noted that AI favours the word ‘tapestry’ and uses it in multiple different ways in its output.
With AI regularly coming under fire for the spread of misinformation and disinformation, among other things, Shahzeb suggested that AI be used to repurpose content, such as converting articles into video scripts, but opined that the technology should not be used for research purposes.
A practical training session complemented Shahzeb’s presentation, where fellows split into groups of five to six to identify and discuss three problems that AI can resolve. These solutions focussed on AI’s capabilities in process automation, pattern recognition, and prediction. After a thorough brainstorming session, the first of the groups presented their case studies and stimulated fruitful debate among the audience.
Each group also actively engaged with multiple AI tools like Chat-GPT, Perplexity, and Dall-E to assess their viability as tools to be used in journalistic work, including research, identifying experts, framing interview questions, writing the final article, and generating images for videos. At the end of this exercise, fellows shared ethical and feasibility scorecards for each of the tasks performed.
The day was wrapped up with a fascinating dinner at Kenny Hills Bistro, followed by a group photograph to commemorate the first day of activities.
Day 2
The second day began with buzzing minds, clicking keyboards, and energetic fellows as the remaining groups presented their findings to Shahzeb.
Wrapping up his session, Shahzeb left everybody with the message that in a world where AI exists, we cannot afford to ignore it. However, one must know where and how to actually use this technology.
After a short break, Alec Corpuz, the coordinator of Diploma of Visual Journalism at ACFJ and the photo editor at ABS-CBN News, led the second workshop. The topic of discussion was ‘Visual Literacy and Generative AI in Today’s Media’.
With a rich experience in visual journalism, Alec shared some basic know-hows with the audience. Showcasing a collection of photographs shot by him in the recent past, he emphasised that context is just as important as accuracy in visual journalism. He added that the burden of fact-checking falls to the visual journalist, not the audience. He also examined the western gaze and the male gaze in visual journalism. His session was jam-packed with numerous photographs and even more discussions and interactions.
An outdoor team building activity was next on the schedule. Fellows were divided in four groups, headed by Alec Corpuz, Ara Luna, Hashim Ahmad Hakeem, and Jacque Manabat and set off with individual group tasks.
Alec’s team went on a photojournalism assignment at the Petronas Twin Towers.
Ara’s team interviewed members of the public on camera.
Hashim’s team was further divided into pairs to make paper planes without communicating verbally.
Jacque’s team had to find five objects based on AI-generated riddles and an AI-generated image.
All group activities ended at the Petronas Twin Towers, which was followed by a visit to the top of the tower for the breathtaking view.
The second day of conference wrapped up with another lip-smacking feast, this time at Nipah Restaurant, where Ansgar broke the sad news of his departure from KAS next year after four years with the company. With tonnes of memories, lessons, photographs, and great friendships, the fellows departed with a heavy heart the next morning. Bidding goodbye to one another with promises to meet soon, some went on to explore Malaysia, while others returned to their countries.
