SATURDAY was yet another World Press Freedom Day 2025. The organic theme for this year is ‘Time to put AI on the social agenda’. On this World Press Freedom Day 2025, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the global voice for journalists, is calling for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to be at the top of the agenda in the social dialogue between journalists’ unions and media.
Meanwhile, in line with UNESCO’s theme for this year, ‘Reporting in the Brave New World – The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Press Freedom’, the IFJ urges journalists, unions, and media organisations to engage in collective action to ensure that AI serves the ethical creation of news, protects press freedom, and sustains jobs.
In its recommendations on the use of Artificial Intelligence adopted in June 2024, the IFJ highlighted that “AI cannot replace human journalists, and its output must not be considered ‘journalism’, save where it has been subject to appropriate human oversight and checking.”
Fact-checking and critical thinking are at the core of journalism: AI cannot do them independently. The IFJ warns in particular against bias, stereotypes and factual errors that can contribute to misleading audiences. The federation points that journalists are essential for these tasks. The rise of AI-fuelled online disinformation is another threat, requiring a response in the form of journalists’ scrutiny. Deep fakes are particularly challenging, reminds the IFJ. “Deep fakes are a direct attack on democracy and on people’s fundamental right to reliable and independent information,” says Anthony Bellanger, IFJ General Secretary.
“Journalists are on the front lines of this drift, and their verification work is becoming increasingly important although complex.”
The IFJ is urging trade unions and media to address the issue of Artificial Intelligence, as part of their social dialogue. AI is reshaping newsrooms, automating routine tasks, assisting with data analysis, and even generating content. And here is the thing, this technology has the potential to improve efficiency and save journalists from doing mundane tasks such as data collection. But the IFJ is concerned that little has been done in the social dialogue to ensure the ethical use of AI in newsrooms, e.g. directly addressing clauses on transparency.
The Federation is particularly concerned that AI could ultimately replace editorial decisions, which are currently made by professional staff in newsrooms.
Besides, the Federation has specific concerns about the use of journalistic works to feed AI. This often automatic process can lead to journalists not being compensated for their articles, unless a specific agreement has already been made with the relevant media organisations. As we are just learning the ropes in this country, licensing agreements between news organisations and AI companies should ensure that journalists are fairly compensated for their contributions and allow journalists to opt out if they refuse their works being used in this way. There have been reports that professional bodies have initiated discussion points on this business dynamics of journalism.
This is quite important as we reflect on the themes this year: Unions and media should also ensure that journalists, including freelancers, receive proper AI literacy training. They should also help journalists make this work transition. That is the only way empowerment and compensation can accrue to practitioners in this age of the giants and disrupters.
“It is high time for everyone in the sector to jointly reflect on how journalism can adapt to the evolving landscape of AI, while safeguarding its ethical standards and the core values of press freedom,” says Bellanger. “The future of journalism is one where human oversight, transparency and accountability remain at the centre of AI usage. We must ensure that technology serves to enhance the work of journalists, not undermine it.”
The IFJ calls on all stakeholders – journalists, unions, media organisations and policymakers – to work collaboratively in developing AI guidelines that prioritise the rights and wellbeing of journalists. This goal should include setting clear boundaries for AI’s role in newsrooms, fostering transparency in AI processes, ensuring that journalists get compensated and can opt out of their work being used by AI, and protecting editorial independence. The Federation also highlights the importance of collective bargaining, to guarantee that journalists’ voices are heard as these technologies become more integrated into the media landscape.
Before we drew attention to concerns about threat to press freedom at home, it is fitting to note that leaders in global context don’t always walk their talk on freedom of the press. None of tem as I noted before, likes robust journalism. That is what Ms Marina Walker Guevara, Executive Editor Pulitzer Centre noted yesterday in her reflection on this year’s WPFD: Her words:
“Even for a president who insults journalists routinely over normal coverage of his administration, the latest tirade by Argentine President Javier Milei was shocking in its menace. It comes at a moment when officials from Washington to New Delhi are also inciting hatred of the free press. I am from Argentina, and I am a citizen of the United States. For the first time in 22 years living in the U.S., press freedom is under siege in both places I call home. In my book, this was not supposed to happen in the U.S., the country of the First Amendment, the Freedom of Information Act, Watergate, and the Pentagon Papers. Yet here we are, witnessing the Associated Press semi-banned from the White House; corporate media settling frivolous lawsuits by President Trump to protect their other businesses; storied journalists exiting storied programs such as 60 Minutes over a loss of editorial independence.
It’s tempting to feel we have little to celebrate on World Press Freedom Day. Still, as challenges rise, the Pulitzer Center’s partner journalists and outlets are doubling down on rigor, independence, and creativity. The more they are threatened, the busier they get. Their stories spark dialogue and change, and they make powerful people uncomfortable.
Recently, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, subtly discouraged his followers from reading Karen Hao’s much-anticipated book on Open AI, Empire of AI. Hao, who has pioneered the field of investigations on AI’s impacts, is the lead designer of the Pulitzer Center’s AI Spotlight Series, a state-of-the-art training program that supports journalists reporting on AI systems, companies, and economics…
Reporting by another Pulitzer Center partner, Sofia Schurig of Brazil’s Núcleo, recently prompted Brazil’s consumer protection officials to request an inquiry into Meta, the social media giant that owns Instagram and Facebook. Schurig and her colleagues found 14 Instagram accounts featuring child sexual exploitation content generated by artificial intelligence; after the journalists contacted the company, Meta removed the accounts. Our mission at the Pulitzer Center is to make stories like these possible, and to develop compelling ways to connect audiences with journalism through art, education, civic dialogue, and more.
We are convinced that amid our democracies’ struggles—and in spite of them—independent journalists will do their most consequential work”.
Even as we are concerned about the AI bogey, we are nursing fresh concerns about press freedom in Nigeria, which easily the most significant civil society organisation, at the moment, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) are addressing today through a colloquium and a press conference. Journalists and civil society activists and leaders have been invited to grace at Radisson Hotel, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos. The gathering will be on the main concern: “Unchecked Injustice: How Authorities Are Weaponising the Cybercrime Act to Stifle Peaceful Dissent and Media Freedom in Nigeria.” According to SERAP and the Guild of Editors, the jointly event will bring together media executives, civil society organisations, human rights activists and other stakeholders.
The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) as a professional group of editors and media executives is to promote and defend the rights and interests of editors in Nigeria. The Guild’s mission is to foster excellence in editing and journalism, and to promote a free and independent press. Its objectives include, promoting and defending the rights and interests of editors in Nigeria.
SERAP is a non-profit, nonpartisan, legal and advocacy organisation devoted to promoting transparency, accountability and respect for socio-economic rights in Nigeria. SERAP received the Wole Soyinka Anti-Corruption Defender Award in 2014, and was nominated for the UN Civil Society Award and Ford Foundation’s Jubilee Transparency Award. SERAP was also nominated for the 2024 Columbia Global Freedom of Expression Prizes. SERAP is a member of the UNCAC Coalition, a global anti-corruption network of over 350 civil society organizations (CSOs) in over 100 countries, which is committed to promoting the ratification, implementation and monitoring of the UN Convention against Corruption.
The press conference will focus on assessing the state of human rights and press freedom in Nigeria focusing on the curious weaponisation of the Cybercrime Act to stifle peaceful dissent and media freedom both offline and online, while making recommendations to the Nigerian authorities to address and end the growing crackdown on human rights, media freedom and civic space in the country.
In the middle of December 2024, the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) was resourceful and conflict sensitive, in this regard as it inaugurated a five-man committee to examine and review various anti-media laws in the nation’s statutes. This development came after the Guild expressed concern about the negative impact of the “plethora of obnoxious and anti-media laws” on practitioners and the country.
According to the Editors’ Guild, the committee is on a peace mission and so would work with the office of Minister of Information and National Orientation, the National Assembly, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, and other stakeholders to amend the laws or repeal them outright.
The committee members include a pro-media rights activist and NGE member, Richard Akinnola; a lawyer/former Editor of Punch Newspaper, Gbemiga Ogunleye; former Editor-in-Chief/Managing Director of The Guardian,Martins Oloja; Deputy Editor-in-Chief/Chairman of the Editorial Board of Daily Trust, Idris Hamza, and the General Secretary of the NGE, Dr. Iyobosa Uwugiaren.
The Guild’s executive council noted that that its decision to set up the strategic committee was informed by the “chilling effects” of the legislations on the nation’s democracy and press freedom. Today’s colloquium and press conference is a reinforcement of that decision to use a stakeholder consultation to defuse tension between the state and the media.
In a December 2023 interaction with the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) officials, President Bola Tinubu declared that his administration would always respect media freedoms and divergent views. But there are bills at the federal legislature, which seek to give more teeth to the existing laws that the law enforcement agencies have been exploiting to arrest and detain journalists. This is a day to show some concerns about whether the # Project 2027 hitmen would indeed guarantee press freedom after free speeches and robust and public interest disclosures. That is why on this World Press Freedom Day, we appeal to citizens and all lovers of freedom to support “fearless journalism and protect the right to speak the truth.”
- Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sundays. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.