site.btaBTA Participates in Reuters Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Future of News

Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev participated at the invitation of Reuters in a conference on artificial intelligence and the future of news, organized by the global news agency in the German capital Berlin.

BTA and Reuters have a long-standing partnership, and since 2022 they have been together in MINDS International (Media Innovation Network), an association of 25 leading news agencies from around the world for cooperation in the field of information services.

The conference was opened by Alphonse Hardel, who has been at the head of the Reuters agency since last year. Among the speakers was Jane Barrett, Head of AI Strategy at Reuters.

The key topics of the conference were dedicated to how artificial intelligence is already changing the way news is produced, edited and disseminated, how news media can maintain trust, ethics, integrity and accuracy in news when using artificial intelligence, how data can be used for new storytelling opportunities to support journalism.

The Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, Mitali Mukherjee, presented the institute's latest study on how artificial intelligence is changing audience behavior and news consumption, which was conducted at the beginning of the year among 97,000 people on 5 continents in 48 countries, including Bulgaria. She explained that traditional media are losing more and more audience to social and video platforms )in the United States of America (USA) since 2013 print media has lost 33% of its audience, television lost 22%, online news sites lost 21%, while social and video platforms have doubled their users from 27% to 54%, with the same trend observed everywhere in the world, especially among young people). Some 55% of all respondents preferred to read the news in text, 31% to watch news in video, and 15% to listen to audio news. Seven percent said they use an artificial intelligence chatbot for news weekly, but this percentage is double among young people under 25 (15%). Sme 40% said they often or sometimes avoid the news because it is negative or about war and politics. According to the study, the majority are not willing to pay for online news, only one in 10% in the UK are willing to pay for news, with willingness higher in the US (20%) and Norway (42%).

The event in Berlin was by invitation only to leaders in European media. Executive producer at Nova Broadcasting Group Metodi Vladimirov also represented Bulgaria.