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Innovation as the Driving Survival Force: The State of the Russian Independent Media in Exile

Berlin: JX Fund (2025), 46 pp.

"Exiled Russian media persist as resilient voices for truth despite repression and funding cuts. Over the past year, the exiled media sector has faced several new restrictions in form of legal pressure on media teams, their audiences and advertisers. As YouTube traffic dropped significantly with abo ... ut 60%, following the last year’s slowdowns, the Russian authorities put pressure on other platforms, for example, WhatsApp, requiring them to share users' data with FSB. Introduction of the state messenger MAX marked another step towards an attempt to reroute the consumers towards state-allowed content only. Despite unprecedented repression, financial hardship, and isolation, the Russian independent media in exile have demonstrated remarkable resilience, continuing to expose state abuses, inform audiences inside Russia, and strengthen democratic discourse abroad. Sustained international support and recognition of their role as part of Europe’s broader security and information ecosystem are now essential to ensure their survival and impact. The abrupt withdrawal of U.S. funding in 2025 has severely undermined the stability of Russian independent media in exile. With the abrupt cuts in major U.S. funding sources, exiled Russian outlets have lost on average 6% of the funding as compared to the last year (when an average annual budget for a medium to large media was €902,778). This is a significant drop. However, comparing to the consequences faced by other countries, it is a smaller funding cut than expected. The media sector faces stronger competition as the media development intermediaries are themselves under the shutdown. Many media have been forced to downsize, cut projects, and rely on unstable ad-hoc grants, revealing both their extraordinary resilience and the fragility of their dependence on external support. The Kremlin’s toolbox expands with growing investment into propaganda, censorship automation and sanctions against information consumers. As the Kremlin censorship has expanded to target content consumers, independent outlets lost about 22% of readership on their webpages. Additionally, the censors continued to introduce new legal restrictions for the advertisers collaborating with independent media, as well as to recognize the independent media as “foreign agents”, “undesirable organizations” and even “terrorists.” Meanwhile, the Kremlin increased its investments into propaganda machine with 7%, including the additional $65 million to Russia Today that targets foreign audiences; as well as innovated automated means of identify and flag an undesired content. Against this backdrop, supporting secure access to information and amplifying independent media must remain central to countering authoritarian disinformation and defending the right to alternative independent information. Independent media innovate to maintain trust and engage audiences. Amid censorship, audience fatigue, and shrinking online space, the 63 Russian independent media in exile continue to reach millions by diversifying platforms, introducing more personalized content, and rebuilding trust through human-centered personalized journalism. Over the last year, the media have compensated the loss of audiences on their webpages via Instagram (+108%), TikTok (90%) and YouTube (+11%). AI empowers exiled newsrooms while exposing new ethical and security challenges. As Russian independent media in exile navigate scarce resources and digital insecurity, artificial intelligence emerges as both a lifeline and a liability. AI currently empowers most of the media teams in exile, and assists in transcription, content creation, data collection for investigative reporting, data analysis, and audience engagement. Yet, AI also exposes the media to new challenges, such as security & privacy, verification & accuracy. Building collective AI literacy, shared standards, and secure innovation support would allow strengthening media resilience. " (Executive summary) more

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Where publishers are seeing AI’s real value – so far

Frankfurt am Main: WAN-IFRA (2025), ?? pp.

"Based on a Q2 2025 survey of more than 100 media leaders and 10 detailed case studies, the report explores how publishers are applying AI to workflows, products and audience engagement – and where its value is proving hardest to measure. Our findings show that AI’s impact is strongest behind th ... e scenes. While only 9 percent of publishers can point to direct revenue gains, 75 percent report efficiency improvements, 64 percent better content production, 55 percent faster publishing times, and 44 percent improved resource allocation. In other words, AI is already changing how news is produced and delivered, even if the financial payoffs are still emerging. “Revenue generation gets all the attention, but it’s often the wrong metric for AI in media. Cost reduction, quality improvements, speed gains, and better resource allocation deliver value faster and more measurably,” noted Ezra Eeman, Director of Strategy & Innovation at NPO, and Strategic Advisor for WAN-IFRA’s AI Initiatives. Here is a summary of the case studies in the report: The Hindu, India, Hard ROI: AI-driven recommendations for content, push notifications, and newsletters boosted CTRs, session durations, ad impressions and subscriptions. Schibsted, Norway, Hard ROI: A machine learning model for real-time personalisation lifted front-page subscription sales by 75 percent, while scaling across multiple newsrooms. United Daily News, Taiwan, Hard ROI: AI optimisation of ads, curation, and recommendations, drove 200 percent growth in ad performance, subscription conversions, and engagement. Financial Times, UK, Soft ROI: FT’s Storyfinding team applies AI to surface patterns in large datasets, streamlining investigative workflows and supporting scalable newsroom tools. NTM, Sweden, Hard and Soft ROI: Toppnyheter, an AI-powered audio news service, delivers real-time summaries while extending editorial oversight and audience reach. La Nación, Argentina, Soft ROI: A custom AI pipeline analysed President Javier Milei’s speeches, structuring 739,961 words to track rhetorical patterns. Legit.ng, Nigeria, Hard and Soft ROI: AI halved translation times, expanded Hausa-language coverage, boosted output, and improved fact-checking and distribution. “For us, AI is not about replacing journalists – it’s about giving them more time to do real journalism,” noted Rahaman Abiola, Editor-in-Chief. Gannett, USA, Hard and Soft ROI: Gannett, the parent company of USA Today, is transforming its 200-plus publications into an AI-ready organisation by embedding the technology across workflows, training and tools. “The real risk isn’t AI replacing you. It’s someone using AI replacing you,” remarked Jessica Davis, Vice President of News Automation and AI Product at Gannett. AsiaOne, Singapore, Hard ROI: An AI classification model improved ad targeting, boosted revenue by 20 percent, cut sales staff by 40 percent, and freed resources for higher-level strategy, while also providing shared insights across editorial, analytics and business teams. South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, Hard ROI: AI summarisation, editing, translation, and investigative tools save 300+ hours monthly while enhancing accuracy and reach." (https://wan-ifra.org) more

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Journalism in the AI era: Opportunities and challenges in the Global South and emerging economies
Deep Insights

Damian Radcliffe

Thomson Reuters Foundation (2025), 66 pp.

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Generative AI & Journalism: Content, Journalistic Perceptions, and Audience Experiences

T. J. Thomson, Ryan J. Thomas, Michelle Riedlinger, Phoebe Matich

Melbourne: RMIT University (2025), 39 pp.

"This report brings together six discrete research and engagement activities over a three-year period (2022-24), drawing on fieldwork in seven countries (Australia, Germany, USA, UK, Norway, Switzerland, and France), and focuses on AI in journalism within three broad domains: AI-generated content in ... more

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Inteligencia Artificial y Comunicación

Lizy Navarro Zamora, Jorge Alberto Hidalgo Toledo, Griselda Guillén Ojeda, Edith Cortés Romero, Miriam Herrera Aguilar et al. (eds.)

RIA Editorial (2024), 370 pp.

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The Peril and Promise of AI for Journalism

Nishtha Gupta, Jenina Ibañez, Chris Tenove

Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI) (2024), 13 pp.

"This report draws on insights from the workshop, along with recent academic and journalistic publishing. It highlights three major issues: How generative AI can make disinformation campaigns faster, more targeted, and more persuasive. How newsrooms’ adoption of AI tools can lead to inaccuracies a ... more

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AI in Journalism Futures. Initial Report

David Caswell, Shuwei Fang

New York: Open Society Foundations (2024), 56 pp.

"The AI in Journalism Futures (AIJF) project explored how artificial intelligence (AI) might fundamentally transform our information ecosystem over the next five to 15 years. Engaging nearly 1,000 global participants, including journalists, technologists, academics, and civil society advocates, the ... project’s objective was to understand the range of possibilities for long-term impact of AI on journalism using a scenario planning approach. An open call for applications produced short scenarios from 880 participants, from which 40 were selected to participate in a scenario planning workshop held in Piedmont, Italy, in April 2024. This workshop facilitated the refinement of five robust and plausible future scenarios. The five key scenarios developed were: “Machines in the Middle,” in which AI-driven newsgathering and news production enables newsrooms to operate essentially without human journalists; “Power Flows to Those Who Know Your Needs,” emphasizing the shift of power to those who best understand individual information needs in an AI-empowered information ecosystem; “Omniscience for Me, Noise for You,” depicting a societal divide where some are super-empowered by AI while others may be overwhelmed by distracting or low value information; “AI with Its Own Agency and Power,” envisioning AI systems operating in the information ecosystem with minimal human oversight; and “AI on a Leash,” in which societal or regulatory constraints limit AI’s transformative potential. The workshop produced near-unanimous agreement that AI would fundamentally transform the information ecosystem, but also difficulty in articulating specifically how this transformation might occur, with participants often defaulting to extensions of the status quo. There was considerable skepticism about the ability of traditional journalism institutions to adapt successfully to an AI-driven future, and participants tended to envision coming changes in terms of power shifts away from journalists, with little attention to how those changes might increase or decrease value for audiences. The results of the AIJF workshop underscore the urgency for stakeholders in journalism and civic information to engage in long-term planning and adaptation strategies to effectively navigate the coming AI-mediated information ecosystem. The scenarios and insights provided aim to guide these efforts, offering a foundation for understanding and thinking about journalism’s AI future." (Executive summary) more

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Control Beyond Code: Ownership and Financial Insights of AI Used in Journalism

Sydney Martin

Santiago de Compostela: Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2024), 17 pp.

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AI in Journalism Challenge 2023. Final Report

David Caswell

New York: Open Society Foundations (2024), 60 pp.

"This report describes the Applied AI in Journalism Challenge (AIJC)—a competitive accelerator program intended to prototype pragmatic applications of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in mission-driven newsrooms around the world. The program was launched in June 2023 and ran until Novembe ... r 2023. Funding was provided by the Open Society Foundations. The author of this report was the lead consultant for the project. The AIJC program was the first of its kind and therefore was itself a prototype—both of a process for accelerating the pragmatic adoption of AI within newsrooms, and also of an approach to developing investment opportunities around applying AI to news. The program was largely successful, developing a cohort of capable and motivated teams and actively engaging with them as they developed substantial new capabilities. The program also succeeded in producing a range of practical insights for its different stakeholder groups—newsrooms, program operators, investors, and the news industry generally. This report provides a complete record of the AIJC program. The primary intention in writing it is to contribute the experience and insights accumulated during the program to the global journalism community, and to provide sufficient detail and specificity to be directly useful to anyone seeking to apply those lessons to hands-on projects, accelerator programs, and investments. The first section of the report provides a systematic description of the program, including why it was initiated, what it was trying to achieve, how it was set up, and how it actually played out in practice. The second section reviews the tangible outcomes of the program and describes the “funneling” of projects from the proposals in the initial applications, to the teams selected to participate in the program, to the finalist projects, to the eventual program winner (and runner up). The third section lists the specific lessons learned by the AIJC community, one by one, with a detailed explanation of each lesson and the evidence for it from the program. The fourth section gathers and analyzes these lessons to provide a succinct set of specific recommendations, organized for newsrooms, for operators of similar AI in news accelerator programs, for investors, and finally for the global news ecosystem. The fifth and final section draws on those lessons to look into the near future and offers some general opinions and guidance for changes that we might anticipate for news in the age of AI, as well as some guidance for preparing journalism for that transformation." (Introduction, page 4) more

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Local Journalism, Global Challenges: News Deserts, Infodemic and the Vastness in Between

Adriana Gonçalves, Carmen Neamtu, Chuchu Zhao et al.

Covilhã: LabCom; Beira Interior University (2024), 203 pp.

"[...] Pedro Jerónimo’s anthology addresses a highly relevant topic. It offers insights into the state of local media in countries where little research has been published to date. Of the eight contributions in the volume, four focus on Europe and Latin America (Romania, Portugal, Europe, and Bra ... more

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AI and the future of journalism: An issue brief for stakeholders

Anya Schiffrin

Paris: UNESCO (2024), 18 pp.

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The Palgrave Handbook of Cross-Border Journalism
Deep Insights

Liane Rothenberger, Martin Löffelholz, David H. Weaver (eds.)

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2024), xxv, 618 pp.

"This handbook critically analyzes cross-border news production and "transnational journalism cultures" in the evolving field of cross-border journalism. As the era of the internet hasfurther expanded the border-transcending production, dissemination and reception of news, and with transnational co- ... more

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) Adoption by Journalists in Zambia: Survey Report

Teldah Mawarire, Meck Phiri (eds.)

USAID; FHI 360; Internews (2024), 12 pp.

"The survey report of 70 Zambian media professionals found that 60% of journalists use AI tools, with chatbots, image and video analysis, and automated content generation being the most utilized tools. Although AI tools might have improve efficiency, some respondents found the integration process to ... more

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Constructive AI Compass: Knowledge, Tools and Tips for Everyday Journalism

Bonn: Bonn Institute (2024), 72 pp.

"This little booklet is brimming with AI knowledge and sample prompts that can help with brainstorming ideas, conducting research and preparing for interviews. How does artificial intelligence work? How did it come about, and what impact does it have on the environment? What are the legal parameters ... more

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How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Media and Journalism in Central Europe: A study mapping the use of AI by newsrooms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

Marius Dragomir (ed.)

Thomson Foundation; Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2024), 18 pp.

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Inteligencia artificial para la generación de contenidos en Iberoamérica: Experiencias editoriales en medios de comunicación

Alexis Apablaza-Campos, Jaime Andrés Wilches Tinjacá (eds.)

Bogotá: Data Factory (2024), 136 pp.

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AI Adopition in Bangladeshi Newsrooms 2024

Maliha Tabassum

Dhaka: Management and Resources Development Initiative (MRDI); Asia Foundation (2024), 40 pp.

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Reporting on Artificial Intelligence: A Handbook for Journalism Educators

Maarit Jaakkola (ed.)

Paris: UNESCO (2023), 133 pp.

"[...] While many AI deployments serve public interest, journalists also need insight and expertise to alert about aspects like exclusions, unequal benefits, and violations of human rights. As part of its journalism education series, UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communic ... more

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AI and automated decision-making in news and media: Key technologies and emerging challenges

Melbourne: ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society; RMIT University (2023), 37 pp.

"Automated systems and processes are a common feature of the news and media environment. This report introduces four key examples: search, recommendation, automated content moderation and curation, and advertising technology (AdTech). We provide a basic explanation of how these systems work at the t ... more

Journalism in the AI era: Opportunities and challenges in the Global South and emerging economies Deep Insights

The Palgrave Handbook of Cross-Border Journalism Deep Insights

Journalism in the AI era: Opportunities and challenges in the Global South and emerging economies
Deep Insights

The Palgrave Handbook of Cross-Border Journalism
Deep Insights