Ethics | legal issues

Ethics | legal issues

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AI Enforcement Monitor Germany & EU
Tracks officially published investigations, orders, fines, remedies, and appeals involving AI and automated decision-making in Germany and across the EU. Each entry links to the official source and preserves the procedural stage, legal basis, and a permanent evidence dossier, without generating a compliance score or automated legal interpretation. It is a free, continuously updated research tool for journalists who need to verify what authorities have actually published and distinguish open proceedings from final decisions.

NY Times AI Policy

European Commission: Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content
The EU has guidelines on handling AI transparency as of June 2026

Guidelines Without Guidance: Underdetermination in AI Ethics


NEWSROOM AI POLICIES

Poynter: A Lot Has Changed Since We First Wrote AI Ethics Polices – Here’s What You Need to Know

Poynter: How to Create a Newsroom Artificial Intelligence Ethics Policy

Red Line Project Principles Page (Student Media)

AI Policies for Syllabi
A great collection for courses at various levels. You can submit your own, too.

A Framework for Ethical Integration of Geneartive AI in Educational Assessment
From the Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice

University-Wide AI Policies
Policies from several universities on this Padlet.

NY Times AI Policy

Trusting News Study: What Audiences Want from Media/AI

The Guardian’s Approach to Generative AI

WBUR Boston: Ethics Guide: GenAI

BR: Ethics of AI

The Paris Charter on AI and Journalism
Outlines key principles for developing an AI policy

European Commission: Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content
The EU has guidelines on handling AI transparency as of June 2026

AI + Education = Simplified Newsletter: Syllabus AI Policies

Trusting News
Has many tips on building AI policies, etc.

Trusting News AI Trust Kit
Research, how to write disclosures and more

AI Disclosures Tool
From Joe Amditis at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, this tool serves as a rough and helpful guide for making decisions about whether to disclose the use of AI tools in the production of various journalistic content, and how detailed the description should be for that particular content.

AI Disclosure Examples
From Joe Amditis at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, this lists how various newsrooms have disclosed use in various projects.

Student Press Law Center: Legal Considerations of Artificial Intelligence for Student Journalists

EdWeb: Generative AI Guidelines for Student Media Making: Centering Youth Voice, Ethics, and Productivity 

University of Alabama: Guidelines for Appropriate Use of AI Generated Media

Northern Illinois: Class Policies for AI Tools

Thomson Reuters: Three Steps to an AI-Ready Newsroom

Nieman Lab: How Does Grok Figure Out Its Version of the Truth? It Asks Elon

Nieman Lab: “Piracy is piracy”: Disney and Universal sue AI image generator Midjourney in a Hollywood first


ETHICS | LEGAL ISSUES | BEST PRACTICES | ARTICLES

NY Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over Copyright
A case that will have a huge impact on intellectual property in the AI era

Wired: Anthropic Wins Landmark AI Copyright Case but Still Faces Piracy Claims

Anthropic Wins Fair Use Legal Case (Ruling)

Writing and Exclusion: AI Helps Expand Definitions of Literacy
Interesting post from CUNY’s Jeff Jarvis on how to understand AI tools, not run from them.

MIT AI Risk Repository
Detailed list of 700-plus risks

Markkula Center: Guidelines for the Ethical Use of Generative AI on Campus

Columbia Journalism Review: Is AI Software a Partner for Journalism, or a Disaster?

How Wired.com is Using AI Technology
Good example of transparency with readers

Personal Policy on Ethical AI Use
Example of a good policy to share with readers about how you’re using AI in your journalism.

ChatGPT Privacy Settings
You can tell ChatGPT not to train its model on the data you upload

Nieman Lab: Politico’s Recent AI Experiments Shouldn’t be Subject to Newsroom Editorial Standards, Its Editors Testify

Reuters Institute: Focus on the Humans, Not the Robots: Tips from the Author of AP Guidelines on How to Cover AI
A Q&A with Garance Burke, who led the development of the AI chapter in the latest edition of the AP Stylebook.

GPTbot
OpenAI’s webcrawler has documentation that news orgs can use to block the crawler from grabbing their content.

Trusting News: See How Newsrooms Talk Publicly About Improving Diversity in Their Coverage
Lynn Walsh used AI in the writing of this post. Disclosure included at the bottom)

Trusting News: New Research: Journalists Should Disclose Their Use of AI. Here’s How.
What do audiences expect from media using AI? They want to know how they’re using it.

Indicator AI Ethics Policy
How the fact-checking newsletter uses AI tools

What Generative AI Means for the Media Industries, and Why it Matters to Study the Collective Consequences for Advertising, Journalism, and Public Relations
Journal article from Andrea Guzman and Seth Lewis

Bloomberg Technology: AI Needs So Much Power, It’s Making Yours Worse
A good deep-dive into the impact of AI on the environment

How 9 Facial Recognition Services Handle Images, Disclose Ownership, and More

Poynter: Sun-Time and Philly Inquirer’s AI-Written Summer Insert Hallucinations

Poynter: Wyoming reporter uncovers competitor using AI-generated quotes

Newsroom Robots Podcast: Congresswoman Anna Eshoo on Shaping the Future of AI Policy

Tracking AI Legislation Newsletter

AP Stylebook Standards on AI

Poynter: New AP Stylebook Guidelines on AI

UNESCO’s Ethical Impact Assessment Tool for Artificial Intelligence

Journalist’s Resource: Researchers Compare AI Policies and Guidelines at 52 News Organizations

Partnership on AI: Responsible Practices for Synthetic Media

PineCone: Understanding Hallucinations in AI – A Comprehensive Guide

Trusting News: Use Viral Photos as a Chance to Explain Visuals

Chicago Sun-Times: Special Section with Fake Book List Plagued with Additional Errors, Sun-Times Review Finds

Guidelines Without Guidance: Underdetermination in AI Ethics

Meta Video Seal
Open-source tool for embedding watermarks in videos

Good Reads: I Would Rather See My Books Pirated Than This
Author Jane Friedman on how someone used AI to create fake books under her name and sell them on Amazon.

NewsGuard
Transparent reliability ratings for news and information sources. It also does this for AI tools.

Where or Nowhere? Tracking Elusive Journalistic Guidelines for Ethical Use of Location Data
Book Abstract

Algorithms in the Newsrooms: Challenges and Recommendations for Artificial Intelligence with the Ethical Values of Journalism
Research-based analysis of the ethics of AI and journalism by Patrícia Ventura Pocino.

Global Master List of Current Lawsuits Against AI (As of July 2025)

Henk Van Ess: How AI Bots Quietly Dismantle Paywalls

Elvex.ai
Superpowers organizations to manage and use generative AI safely, securely, and with the simplicity needed to unlock its potential across the enterprise. Software can protect your content uploaded to LLMs by preventing them from using your content to train its models.

Hacks/Hackers: To Sue or Not To Sue: The Legal Battle over AI and Journalism
Excellent video of a panel discussion on the topic.

The AI Copyright Trap
A must-read paper for everyone interested in AI governance and following various AI copyright lawsuits

CJR: Five Days of Facebook Fact-Checking (2020)
With Meta canceling its fact-checking program two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, a look back at how the program ran just as Biden was about to take office.

Tow Center for Digital Journalism News Publisher-AI Company Tracker
Monitor the evolving relationship between news publishers and AI companies. Itcatalogs lawsuits, licensing deals, etc. on publicly available information, giving a clearer picture of how this landscape is taking shape. You can export data from the site.

Social Media Users Don’t Realize Their Power

TechPolicy.Press: OpenAI’s Sora Is Here. There Is Still Time To Prepare For The Threat Such Technologies Pose

CopyrightCheckAI
Uncovers copyright violations with AI

Created by Human
License your work: AI rights licensing platform

AI, Visual Journalism and Disinformation Bibliography 2024
An excellent collection of articles, issues and other links from Regina McCombs at the University of Minnesota.

AI Enforcement Monitor Germany & EU
Tracks officially published investigations, orders, fines, remedies, and appeals involving AI and automated decision-making in Germany and across the EU. Each entry links to the official source and preserves the procedural stage, legal basis, and a permanent evidence dossier, without generating a compliance score or automated legal interpretation. It is a free, continuously updated research tool for journalists who need to verify what authorities have actually published and distinguish open proceedings from final decisions.

MethodKit Tool for Journalists

Cult of Pedagogy: Catch Them Learning – A Pathway to Academic Integrity in the Age of AI

You’re Here Because You Said AI Image Creation is Just Like Photoshop

Knight Fellows Stanford: Theft is Not Fair Use

Poynter: Wyoming reporter uncovers competitor using AI-generated quotes

Newsroom Robots Podcast: Congresswoman Anna Eshoo on Shaping the Future of AI Policy

Peta Pixel’s Unethical Use of AI for News Photo

Council of Europe: Guidelines on the Responsible Implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems in Journalism

Columbia Journalism Review: The News Media and AI: A New Front in Copyright Law 

Chicago Sun-Times: Artificial Intelligence is Good for Many Things, but it Doesn’t Work So Well in Journalism

NY Times: ‘A.I. Obama’ and Fake Newscasters: How A.I. Audio Is Swarming TikTok

Oliver Wyman: AI’S Bias May be Easier to Fix Than Humanity’s, Here’s Why

Poynter: To Build Trust in the Age of AI, Journalists Need New Standards and Disclosures

Trusting News: Can ChatGPT and AI Help Us Prevent Bias and Polarization in Our Reporting?

Simon Rogers: AI for Data Storytelling

NY Times: Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See?

AI Comprehensive Guide to Ethical Prinicples and Practices

Sarah Silverman Suing OpenAI and Meta Over Copright Infringement

RJI: Don’t have a newsroom policy for ChatGPT? Join the club!

Slate: AI Can I Have My Old Job?

Forbes: AI-Created Images Aren’t Protected By Copyright Law According To U.S. Copyright Office

Fortune: Nvidia and Adobe try to Fix AI’s Copyright Problem

VoxEurop: A Call for Generative AI-Free Newsrooms

Nieman Reports: Smart Ways Journalists Can Explore AI

Birmingham City University: Generative AI Diversity Guidelines – Birmingham School of Media

PressGazette.co.uk: Ethics of Generative AI for Journalism: What We Know So Far

Ultimate List of AI Tools
A great list from Descript’s Ashley Hamer.

CJR: How Can Artificial Intelligence Help Journalists?

Understanding Journalism and AI
An excellent Medium post by Corinne Podger that includes best practices, academic research, links to tools and more.

PR Newswire: Communications, AI andthe Role of Ethics

Artificial Intelligence in Local News: A Survey of US Newsrooms’ AI Readiness
Download a free .PDF of The Associated Press’ groundbreaking report that provides important insights into local news outlets’ understanding of artificial intelligence and their readiness to use AI to meet their journalism and business needs. The report is based on survey results from nearly 200 newsrooms across all 50 states and more than two dozen in-depth interviews with local news leaders. Print, radio, television and digital outlets are represented, as well as commercial and nonprofit operations. In addition to demonstrating a readiness to adopt AI and automation technologies, the report outlines what local news providers need to drive technological innovation.

NY Times Lawsuit: A Twitter Thread
Jason Kint’s great breakdown of NY Times lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.

Nieman Lab: AI Throws a Lifeline to Local Publishers
A forward-thinking article, written in late 2022, by Joe Amditis, assistant director of products and events at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.

The Guardian: ChatGPT is Making up Fake Guardian Articles. Here’s How We’re Responding

Nieman Lab: The Year AI Truly Arrives – With Reckoning
Written by Burt Herman, former AP journalist and founder of Storify.

ICFJ: 8 Solutions for Mitigating Bias in AI-Assisted Reporting

The Guardian: US newspapers are Deleting Old Crime Stories, Offering Subjects a ‘Clean Slate’

GIJN: 10 Things You Should Know About AI in Journalism

GIJN: Journalist’s Guide to Using AI and Satellite Imagery for Storytelling

A People’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence

Forbes: 10 Most Important AI Trends for 2024 That Everyone Must Be Ready For

The Economist: The 5 Best Books for Understanding AI

Nieman Lab: Synthetic Media Forces Us to Understand How Media Gets Made
Written by Sam Gregory, director of programs, strategy, and innovation at Witness, the global human rights and civic journalism network.

Knight Lab: AI, Automation and Newsrooms

The Fix: AI Tools to Save Journalists Time and Money

Wonder Tools: Try These AI Writing Tools in 2023
A great collection of tools in Jeremy Caplan’s Substack newsletter.

Data Journalism: Wrangling the Robots: Leveraging Smart Data-Driven Software for Newsrooms

The Artificial Creativity Landscape
More than 180 AI tools in a downloadable PDF. Just click on the icons to find your next AI tool for creative and knowledge work.

Why Local News Should be Utilizing AI
From the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.

JournalismAI
A research and training project at Polis, the international journalism think tank of the London School of Economics.

Associated Press: AI Projects and How We’re Using the Technology

Images of AI
No, it’s not robots. Here are some Creative Commons-licensed images that you can use.

How AI Can Now Falsify Satellite Images