World Press Freedom Day 2025: NewsBrands Ireland calls for action from government on Artificial Intelligence – Government must ensure that news publishers are fairly remunerated for use of their journalistic content to train AI

 3. May 2025. Today is UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day, an annual day which celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom, evaluates press freedom around the world, defends the media from attacks on their independence and pays tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession. 

The theme for World Press Freedom Day this year will focus on the profound influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on journalism and media under the theme: Reporting in the Brave New World – The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Press Freedom and the Media.

AI is transforming journalism, providing tools that enhance investigative reporting, content creation, and fact-checking. It allows for greater efficiency, multilingual accessibility, and improved data analysis. However, these advancements also bring risks: AI-generated misinformation and disinformation, deepfake technology, biased content moderation, and surveillance threats to journalists. Additionally, AI’s role in the media business model raises concerns about fair remuneration for journalistic content and media viability.

Ann Marie Lenihan, CEO of NewsBrands Ireland, notes that “A new Oireachtas committee focusing on artificial intelligence has now been set up and we are calling on this committee to recognise that Big Tech and AI companies are currently exploiting publishers’ original journalism content without permission or compensation, and using it to develop AI products that divert advertising and subscription revenue away from news publishers. This issue does not just affect news publishers, it is affecting all creators, including authors, artists, and musicians.”

Action is needed at Irish and EU level

NewsBrands Ireland is calling for responsible and compliant AI systems -companies that engage in AI must be transparent and accountable about copyright, privacy, use of data, and purpose. The news industry is committed to keeping the trust of its readers while integrating AI: the use of AI to assist our editorial processes and journalistic work (e.g. translation, transcripts of interviews, illustration of covers and websites, summaries, etc) falls within our editorial responsibility and human scrutiny. There will always be a person liable and accountable for news products generated with the assistance of AI. 

Meaningful implementation of the EU AI Act in Ireland – to enable creators and rightsholders to exercise and enforce their rights when it comes to ingesting and copying copyright protected works for training by AI models. News publishers invest significant time and resources generating content that big tech companies are seeking to mine for the purposes of automatically generating profitable content without further investment.    The EU’s AI Act provides stringent rules for providers of general-purpose AI models; these rules need to be meaningfully implemented and enforced.

Code of Practice on General Purpose Artificial Intelligence (CoP) – NewsBrands is currently working with our EU representative body News Media Europe on recommendations to the European Commission which aim to help companies comply with the EU’s AI Act, including transparency and copyright-related rules, risk assessment, and mitigation measures. As the publication of the code of practice is delayed, we urge the European Commission to substantially improve the text to make sure the code is consistent with European copyright law.  Moreover,  the template for the “detailed summary” of copyright sources that AI companies must later publish, should be granular enough to allow press publishers to enforce their rights. From an intellectual property perspective, transparency, control and remuneration are existential for the future of journalism.

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