Monthly Archives: May 2025

Teaching journalism students generative AI: why I switched to an “AI diary” this semester

The Thinker status — Image by Fredrik Rubensson CC BY-SA 2.0

As universities adapt to a post-ChatGPT era, many journalism assessments have tried to address the widespread use of AI by asking students to declare and reflect on their use of the technology in some form of critical reflection, evaluation or report accompanying their work. But having been there and done that, I didn’t think it worked.

So this year — my third time round teaching generative AI to journalism students — I made a big change: instead of asking students to reflect on their use of AI in a critical evaluation alongside a portfolio of journalism work, I ditched the evaluation entirely.

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Why I’m no longer saying AI is “biased”

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TLDR; Saying “AI has biases” or “biased training data” is preferable to “AI is biased” because it reduces the risk of anthropomorphism and focuses on potential solutions, not problems.

Searches for "AI bias" peaked in 2025. In March 2025 twice as many searches were made for "AI bias" compared to 12 months before. — Click image to explore an interactive version

For the last two years I have been standing in front of classes and conferences saying the words “AI is biased” — but a couple months ago, I stopped.

As journalists, we are trained to be careful with language — and “AI is biased” is a sloppy piece of writing. It is a thoughtless cliche, often used without really thinking what it means, or how it might mislead.

Because yes, AI is “biased” — but it’s not biased in the way most people might understand that word.

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