Real People Reporting Real News
By Linda Belcourt, Editor
Oct. 7, 2024 – It’s no secret that thousands of news stories are published in Canada each day. From local community features to national breaking news stories, the real people reporting real news in your community work tirelessly to ensure readers have access to credible news they can trust.
But who exactly are the real people reporting the news? It could be the person sitting next to you at your favourite coffee shop or the spectator who cheers on your local little league each week; it’s someone in the community just like you!
North Simcoe Springwater News has lots of journists; Dennis Gannan is a journalist from Anten Mills; Leslie Noonan, a local resident and nurse from Midland area, Annie Donnelly, International and Local Correspondent, Brian Belcourt, a Elmvale local journalist specializing in sports, Jamie Robillard, Penetanguishene resident expert on the Kings and the many people that write stories just because they love their communities. LJI Journalists Derek Howard and Wayne Doyle are professionals that write on politics. All are committed to telling the truth! It is not opinion, they are telling the facts!
And just like you, these real journalists care deeply about their community – so much so that they’ve made it their life’s work to keep citizens informed and connected. At the core of every newspaper is a team of real people committed to telling real stories that impact the lives of those in their community.
Champions of the truth come in many forms. It could be journalists and photographers who are on the ground capturing these stories as they happen – using the power of words and imagery to make change. It could be publishers and editors who keep their newsrooms buzzing with opportunities to ensure that community stories make it beyond local borders. Or cartoonists who help readers interpret these same stories visually.
There are a handful of powerhouses behind every story who all have one common goal: keeping our democracy thriving through vibrant, independent and local news media.
Each National Newspaper Week, we celebrate the real people reporting real news for their ongoing commitment to keeping communities connected and our democracy thriving through credible reporting. While they might be people in your community, they are also champions of the truth.
Trusted newspaper content is more important than ever in today’s world, where disinformation travels faster than the truth. Journalists, not AI, power Canadian newspapers – the most credible source of information that remains written by humans, for humans.
Learn more about National Newspaper Week at www.nationalnewspaperweek.ca or www.ChampionsoftheTruth.ca.
AI is still no replacement for local reporting
Did you read the one about the German court reporter who was convicted of abusing children, conning widowers and escaping from a psychiatric hospital? Likely not, as no human editor would ever confuse the writer of an article with people he was writing about. However, Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence Copilot system did just that.
Now, unless you’re the poor German reporter, these sorts of “hallucinations” as they’re euphemistically called, may seem funny or the natural growing pains of a new technology. However, how would you feel if an AI told lies like that about you all the while touting how reliable its system is?
The truth is that, like a politician reading a speech in a language he doesn’t speak, AI doesn’t understand what it’s saying. It’s just a program that looks for patterns based on scanning billions of words of text. To it, it’s a perfectly reasonable assumption that the reporter committed all those crimes because his name was associated with all those stories. But should we really be trusting an algorithm to tell us what’s true and what isn’t when it has no way of knowing itself?
Misinformation aside, I’d never actually tested any of the generative AI programs to see if they could actually be useful for local news, so I asked three of them something I was asked many times during my reporting days: “What happened at last night’s council meeting?”
Copilot gave me a rundown on a vote that took place last night in Aurora … Colorado. After telling me it had no updates, ChatGPT suggested that I add the city I was looking for. I typed in my hometown, and it still returned no answers, but I suggested that I could “find summaries or highlights on the city’s official website or local news outlets.” Gemini did actually pull up some local news, mostly because I had to login to Google to use it. However, the summary it spit out not only wasn’t for the most recent council meeting (which wasn’t actually last night), but after a quick search of a year’s worth of online minutes, I couldn’t find a council meeting that matched the AI’s result.
Now, if you asked a local journalist the same question (even a tricky one) they’d give you an answer. Why? Because he or she was likely one of a very few people sitting there in the gallery observing the goings on. Was AI there? No. Did AI ask the difficult question that the mayor was hoping to avoid? Not a chance. Can you rely on what AI tells you about local news? Apparently not.
And you don’t need to be a German court reporter to see that.
– Gordon Cameron is the executive director of the Ontario Community Newspapers Association.
– Sep 25, 2024
The Importance of Canadian News Media in the Age of Misinformation
By News Media Canada
Sep. 23, 2024 – The Canadian news media landscape has changed and evolved more over the last decade than ever before. We’re living in the age of information overload. Without tools to distinguish fact from fiction or help us find what’s relevant to our day-to-day lives, misinformation makes it easy to get lost and confused.
Independent local news media outlets are essential to providing Canadians with the factual and reliable information they need. Canadians need to know where and how to access credible news. Here are four ways to stay connected with your local news:
1) Go directly to the source – When in doubt, get it straight from the source! There’s no better way to access credible, relevant news than heading straight to your local newspaper’s website, reading the e-edition of the paper, or picking up a print copy.
2) Newsletters – If you’re looking for convenience, get the news straight to your inbox by subscribing to a newspaper newsletter. You’ll get local content straight from the source, and you can sign up for multiple newsletters from different newspapers to get a variety of relevant content.
3) Subscriptions – Check to see if your local paper has a subscription service, whether print or digital. It’s a surefire way to support your newspaper and the industry, all while keeping you informed through credible news.
4) Podcasts – Are you often on-the-go, or just not a big reader? Many outlets now offer news podcasts as a great and reliable way for Canadians to access relevant information. It’s easy to stay informed with dependable and factual information even if you lead a busy lifestyle.
Ultimately, there are many ways to consume local news media content. Interacting with your local newspaper and supporting its content is an act of civic engagement that helps to uphold our country’s democracy.
Trusted newspaper content is more important than ever in today’s world, where disinformation travels faster than the truth. Journalists, not AI, power Canadian newspapers – the most credible source of information that remains written by humans, for humans.
Learn more about National Newspaper Week at www.nationalnewspaperweek.ca or www.ChampionsoftheTruth.ca.