UAB conference maps AI skills and safeguards for future journalists

The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona has held a conference on how journalism schools should adapt as artificial intelligence changes the skills, teaching methods and ethical questions facing future communicators. The Nov. 6 event placed critical thinking, media literacy, creativity and verification at the centre of the future journalist’s profile.

Hosted by UAB’s Faculty of Communication Studies, “Educating Journalists in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Challenges, Skills and Teaching Models for Training Future Communicators” brought together researchers, teachers and communication professionals. It was organised by the university’s Communication and Education Office and focused on rethinking university training in response to AI.

The programme divided the discussion into three areas: the skills required of journalists, AI’s integration into the classroom, and the technology’s ethical implications. The classroom strand considered new learning methods and assessment models, while the ethics sessions addressed academic integrity, transparency, copyright, algorithmic bias and privacy.

Organisers said the aim was to exchange good practice and develop proposals for bringing AI into teaching in a critical, responsible and pedagogically sound way. The gathering also considered the role universities should play during technological change, rather than treating AI solely as a tool to be adopted.

Participants included José Manuel Pérez Tornero, who leads UNESCO’s Cooperation Program in Media Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue; Santiago Tejedor, director of UAB’s Department of Communication and Education; Cristina Pulido, director of the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences; and Beatriz Villarejo, a journalism professor and IA-COM researcher. The initiative formed part of the OI2 and IA-COM projects promoted by the Communication and Education Office.

A UAB and CEU Abat Oliba University literature review examined 203 English-language articles on AI and journalism published from 2020 through 2024. The study found that scholarly output rose from 13 articles in 2020 to 102 in 2024, with Spain accounting for 26% of the research reviewed.

Yet the review concluded that research had paid limited attention to AI’s environmental impact, its use in the Global South, audience perceptions, and whether ethical codes and self-regulation work in practice. It also warned that many studies treated AI chiefly as a promising innovation, without fully examining its cultural, political and epistemological implications or potential interference with journalistic judgment.

The review was itself part of IA-COM, a Spanish Research Agency-funded project on using AI to promote quality journalism and media literacy in the era of disinformation.