dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta
@dmil.bsky.social
110 followers 64 following 10 posts
Data Journalism Prof. @ Columbia University and Deputy Director of Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
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Reposted by Dhrumil Mehta
nausheen.bsky.social
Nausheen Husain @nausheen.bsky.social · 28d
Today at #datajconf: we talked about what we've learned about pedagogy in the process of running datajournalismteachers.club. Focused on grounding data journalism in tools *and* humanities, teaching with a learner-centered rather than a "banking" model, and how we learn in community. Join the club!
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Aug 26
Great work by @aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social. Read more below!

www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
Why AI models are bad at verifying photos
Many of the latest large language models, including OpenAI’s recently released GPT-5, tout an impressive capability: reasoning about images. We have seen viral trends of AI models geolocating obscure ...
www.cjr.org
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Aug 26
Can AI tools fact-check images? The Tow Center tested 10 images, asking AI tools to: 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 and identify its 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲, and 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲.

Results were...well, there's a lot of red on this chart.

Read the research here:
www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
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Reposted by Dhrumil Mehta
towcenter.bsky.social
Tow Center for Digital Journalism @towcenter.bsky.social · May 15
The latest from the Tow Center:
We interviewed news and tech industry representatives about AI’s impact on platforms and publishers. They expressed some hope and a lot of trepidation. @klaudia.bsky.social @columjournreview.bsky.social @columbiajournalism.bsky.social
www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
A New Report Takes On the Future of News and Search
The Tow Center for Digital Journalism interviewed news and tech industry representatives about AI’s impact on platforms and publishers. They expressed some hope and a lot of trepidation.
www.cjr.org
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Reposted by Dhrumil Mehta
columbiajournalism.bsky.social
Columbia Journalism School @columbiajournalism.bsky.social · Mar 6
🔍 AI Search Engines: popular, but potentially problematic.

A new study from the @towcenter.bsky.social reveals the hidden pitfalls in AI-powered search, like misattribution, misinformation and missing citations:
www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
We Compared Eight AI Search Engines. They’re All Bad at Citing News.
AI search tools are rapidly gaining in popularity, with nearly one in four Americans now saying they have used AI in place of traditional search engines. These tools derive their value from crawling t...
www.cjr.org
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Mar 8
“AI search” has a citation problem.

Latest from @towcenter.bsky.social

www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Mar 6
Yes please! Just started BlueSky-ing. Thanks!
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Mar 6
This has implications for news publishers who are considering making deals with AI companies. More on that in the piece. www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...
We Compared Eight AI Search Engines. They’re All Bad at Citing News.
AI search tools are rapidly gaining in popularity, with nearly one in four Americans now saying they have used AI in place of traditional search engines. These tools derive their value from crawling t...
www.cjr.org
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Mar 6
It turns out this problem extends to many other chatbots too. In @towcenter.bsky.social's tests, they often cited the wrong article, and sometimes also fabricated links & cited syndicated or plagiarized articles instead of the original.
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Mar 6
This builds on prior tests showing that ChatGPT frequently cited the wrong source article, but rarely expressed uncertainty. If it didn't know the answer (at least to the kinds of questions we asked), it confidently made one up. cjr.org/tow_center/how-chatgpt-misrepresents-publisher-content.php
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Mar 6
Using AI search tools for research? Tow Center asked 8 AI search tools to find the source of excerpts from news articles (something Google search does pretty well). They often cited the wrong sources with confidence.

Find @aisvarya17.bsky.social at #NICAR25 to hear more.
🧵Thread w/ findings below👇
klaudia.bsky.social
klaudia jaźwińska @klaudia.bsky.social · Mar 6
We found that:

1️⃣ Chatbots were generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn’t answer accurately, offering incorrect or speculative answers instead.
Graph title: "Generative search tools were often confidently wrong in our study" Subtitle: "The Tow Center asked eight generative search tools to identify the source article, the publication and URL for 200 excerpts extracted from news articles by 20 publishers. Each square represents the citation behavior of a response."
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Mar 6
Are you using Generative AI tools as your search engine? @towcenter.bsky.social ran a test to see how often they cite news articles correctly given direct quotes from them.

Results are troubling.

www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...

Great work by @aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social
[graph] Generative search tools were often confidently wrong in our study
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dmil.bsky.social
Dhrumil Mehta @dmil.bsky.social · Mar 6
Hello #NICAR25!

Are you an educator who is bringing students to NICAR? Sign them up for the NICAR Scavenger Hunt!

nicarscavengerhunt.com

Students interview working journalists about things they’re learning in your class and you get new example stories related to your course content. Yay!
NICAR Scavenger Hunt
The NICAR25 Scavenger Hunt. Brought to you by the Data Journalism Teachers' Club.
nicarscavengerhunt.com
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