Generative AI and Journalism in the Southern Mediterranean
Generative AI is no longer an emerging technology in journalism. It is already reshaping how news is produced, distributed, verified, and consumed. Across newsrooms, AI tools are being used to draft headlines, translate content, summarize investigations, generate multimedia formats, support research, and curate information flows.
In the Southern Mediterranean, this transformation carries particular significance. Many newsrooms operate under structural constraints, including limited financial resources, fragile press freedom, political pressures, uneven access to technology, and complex multilingual environments. Within this context, generative AI presents both promise and risk. It can help expand editorial capacity, support multilingual publishing, improve audience reach, and reduce repetitive tasks. At the same time, it can accelerate disinformation, reproduce linguistic and cultural biases, weaken editorial autonomy, increase surveillance risks, and deepen technological dependency on actors outside the region.
Co-organized by EuroMedAI and the ARIJ Network, this webinar will explore generative AI not only as a technological shift, but as a transformation that is redefining power, credibility, and control in the media ecosystem. For the Southern Mediterranean, the key question is not whether AI will shape journalism, but how it will do so, under whose terms, and with what safeguards.
About the Organizers
EuroMedAI
EuroMedAI is a Mediterranean initiative that brings together actors from different backgrounds to reflect on and advance responsible, inclusive, and context-sensitive approaches to artificial intelligence. Through dialogue, knowledge exchange, and collaborative activities, EuroMedAI seeks to strengthen understanding of AI’s social, ethical, and governance implications across the Euro-Mediterranean space.
For this webinar, EuroMedAI contributes its regional and multidisciplinary perspective on AI governance, digital transformation, ethics, and the societal impacts of emerging technologies.
ARIJ Network
The ARIJ Network is a leading regional network supporting investigative journalism, fact-checking, media accountability, and information integrity across the Arab region. Through training, mentoring, cross-border collaboration, and editorial support, ARIJ works to strengthen independent journalism and equip journalists with the skills and tools needed to serve the public interest.
For this webinar, ARIJ Network brings its expertise in investigative journalism, newsroom practices, fact-checking, and the challenges facing journalists in rapidly evolving digital and information environments.
Objectives
The webinar aims to move beyond abstract debates and ground the discussion in the lived realities of journalists, researchers, and media professionals across the region. It will:
Map current practices
Examine how journalists and newsrooms in the Southern Mediterranean are currently using generative AI, including where they see value and where they are drawing ethical and editorial red lines.
Interrogate key trade-offs
Discuss the tensions shaping AI adoption in journalism, including speed versus verification, automation versus labour, efficiency versus editorial independence, and innovation versus accountability.
Expose regional vulnerabilities
Analyse risks that are particularly relevant to the Southern Mediterranean, including Arabic-language bias, disinformation, surveillance potential, external technological dependency, and declining public trust in media.
Identify actionable responses
Highlight the safeguards, skills, regulatory approaches, newsroom policies, and collective strategies needed to ensure that AI strengthens journalism rather than undermines it.
Key Discussion Questions
The conversation will address questions such as:
How are journalists and newsrooms in the Southern Mediterranean already using generative AI?
What are the main risks of using AI in contexts marked by political pressure, limited resources, and fragile trust in media?
How can newsrooms balance speed and efficiency with verification, accuracy, and accountability?
What does responsible AI adoption look like for multilingual and Arabic-language journalism?
How can journalists, researchers, civil society, and technology actors work together to protect editorial independence and public interest journalism?
Speakers
Saja Mortada
AFCN Manager, led by ARIJ
Ahmad Esmat
Academic and expert in digital communications and digital transformation, AUC
Jairo Alfonso Lugo-Ocando
Dean, College of Communication, University of Sharjah
Anass Bendrif
Senior media and disinformation expert
Faten Mhadheb - Moderator, EuroMedAI
Target Audience
This webinar is open to journalists from both sides of the Mediterranean, journalism researchers, media professionals, fact-checkers, civil society actors working on information integrity, and EuroMedAI members from diverse backgrounds.
Event Details
Date: 30 April
Time: 16:00 CET
Format: Online webinar
Platform: Zoom
Duration: 90 minutes
Language: English - Arabic
Co-organizers: EuroMedAI and ARIJ Network