By Emily Wright, Jay Barchas-Lichtenstein, Samuel Jens & Amy Mitchell

This report is the first in a series of deep dives into the data from the Center for News, Technology & Innovation (CNTI)’s global surveys of journalists and the public.

In conjunction with our partners at the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), CNTI explored what the surveys reveal about artificial intelligence (AI)’s impact on journalism in Africa. We focused on two central questions:

1. How do journalists in Africa feel about the relationship between journalism and technology, including AI?
2. How does the South African public feel about the relationship between journalism and technology, including AI?

The emergence, continuous evolution and daily use of AI presents both opportunities and challenges for the news industry. As newsrooms adapt to new technological developments and habits, they must also stay true to journalism’s mission and fundamentals. While the rise of AI-powered tools is revolutionizing storytelling, fact-checking, security and audience engagement, the tools’ associated ethical dilemmas, increased accessibility of spyware and government surveillance that use AI and rampant misinformation are persistent issues. 

To answer our two questions, we pull from two separate studies which reflect distinct pools of people. Our global survey of journalists included more than 100 journalists across Africa. Our public survey included a representative sample of the South African public. In both studies, we asked about attitudes towards and uses of technology as a whole — including several questions specifically focused on AI. As with all CNTI research, this report was prepared by the research and professional staff of CNTI.

Part I: What Journalists in Africa Think about Technology

Between October 14, 2024 and December 1, 2024, CNTI surveyed 433 journalists from 63 different countries. This report focuses on respondents based in Africa, including 75 in Nigeria and 34 in other African countries (N = 109). 

This data finds journalists in Africa to be more optimistic than journalists in the rest of the world about the impacts of technological developments — including AI and social media — on enabling journalists’ work and an informed public. They are also more likely to have incorporated technological tools into their work to do things like summarize or analyze documents and enhance their writing. Compared to journalists in other regions, journalists in Africa are more likely to report that their news organizations are transparent with audiences about the use of technology, especially when it is used to check accuracy or improve their writing. Still, similar to journalists around the world, they believe news organizations should pay as much attention as they currently do — or more — to the opportunities and risks AI presents to the news industry.

Journalists in Africa are overwhelmingly using digital technology for information gathering, communicating with sources and reaching their audiences

• Similar to their global counterparts, African journalists highlighted the importance of digital technology for reaching their audiences (96%), information gathering (90%) and communicating with sources (89%).

Journalists in Africa say their news organizations are paying at least some attention to tech issues, but a plurality want to see them pay more attention to AI

• Journalists in Africa (28%) are more likely to say that relationships with technology companies are getting a great deal of attention from their organization (compared with 18% of journalists in the rest of the globe). They report AI in journalism is getting a similar amount of attention as do journalists elsewhere.
• Journalists in Africa rank both of these topics near the bottom for how much attention they get in newsrooms, surpassing only “Online abuse, surveillance, and cyber threats.”

• About half of journalists in Africa think their news organization pays too little attention to developing ways AI can help journalists and other newsroom employees do their work and to mitigating the ways it can harm their ability to do their work (49 and 54%, respectively).These responses are similar to those of journalists in other regions of the world; when we look at all journalists together, those numbers are 45 and 48% respectively.

Journalists in Africa are more positive than others about the impacts of social media and developments in technology and AI

• Journalists in Africa are more positive than journalists elsewhere about the impact of both “developments in technology” and “social media” on their ability to deliver journalism. Compared with 69% and 64% of journalists overall — and thus even smaller numbers of journalists on other continents — 87% and 77% of journalists in Africa  were positive about developments in technology and social media, respectively.
• Journalists in Africa are also more positive about AI’s effects on enabling an informed public about events and issues of the day: 55% of African journalists said they were positive versus 36% of all journalists (and fewer still on other continents).

Journalists in Africa are more likely than others to have used technology in a variety of ways in their profession

• African journalists were more likely than journalists elsewhere to have used technology to make their writing better (74% vs. 56% overall), summarize or analyze a lot of documents or data (75% vs. 60% overall), check the accuracy of something (69% vs. 52% overall), develop story drafts (54% vs. 38% overall) and help determine how to best present a news story to the public (67% vs. 48% overall).
• African journalists were similar to their global counterparts in their likelihood to use technology to edit an image (52% vs. 45% overall), search archives of their reporting or their organization’s (59% vs. 51% overall) and translate content from one language to another (both 65%). 

Journalists in Africa think their organizations are doing a fairly good job of communicating about how they use technology — and they are more likely than journalists elsewhere to say their organization communicates about specific technology uses

• Journalists in Africa agree with journalists elsewhere on how well their news organization communicates different uses of technology — including AI — to the public. A plurality say they are doing a fairly good job.

• Journalists in Africa were more likely than journalists elsewhere to say their organization usually communicates the use of technology to their audience when making their writing better (83% vs. 66% overall), checking the accuracy of something (91% vs. 77% overall), developing story drafts (80% vs. 66% overall) and helping determine the best way to present a news story to the public (76% vs. 63% overall). 
• Journalists in Africa were similar to their global counterparts when saying their organization communicates the use of technology to their audience when searching archives of their reporting or their organizations (82% vs. 71%), summarizing or analyzing a lot of documents or data (80% vs. 69%), translating content from one language to another (78% vs. 68%) and editing an image (75% vs. 70%). 

Journalists in Africa have had their voice, image (or both) reproduced by technology at rates similar to journalists across the rest of the globe

• In the past 12 months, 11% of respondents in Africa learned of someone using technology to reproduce their voice (compared to 10% of all respondents) and 17% of someone using technology to reproduce their image (compared to 15% of all respondents).

In conclusion

Journalists in Africa stand out with their optimism about the impact of technological developments — including AI and social media — on their ability to produce journalism and enable an informed public. They also report using these technologies to assist them in a more diverse range of tasks than their global counterparts and their news organizations are more likely to report this use of technology to news consumers. 

At the same time, journalists in Africa share many common experiences and concerns with journalists in the rest of the world. Like journalists around the world, they rate the importance of technology to their work as extremely high. They experience technology being used to replicate their voice or their image at similar rates. And both the African and overall respondents express a desire for their news organizations to pay at least as much attention as they currently do — or more — to the opportunities and challenges of AI. 

Overall, this research highlights that while AI is impacting newsrooms everywhere, journalists in Africa are actively embracing these tools and are notably positive about the role of technology in the future of journalism.

Part II: What the South African Public Thinks About Technology

We surveyed 1,012 South African adults between September 23, 2024 and October 16, 2024 to understand their attitudes about journalistic uses of technologies such as AI. 

The data shows that the South African public views digital technology as very important and believes that future developments will help them keep informed. Further, they are using technology for content related tasks and express openness to journalists doing the same. Generally, they are overwhelmingly more optimistic about the future of the open internet than people from Australia, Brazil and the U.S.

When asked more specifically about AI, the South African public was relatively positive about AI’s future impact, not only on journalists’ ability to report but also on their own ability to stay informed. However, they are split on how much they care about journalists’ use of AI in reporting and they use multiple factors to decide if its use is okay. Even though there is a general sense of optimism about the future of AI and journalism, South Africans have heard less about AI than people elsewhere and they are using generative AI at low rates. 

The South African public feels more positive about their ability to keep informed than people in Australia, Brazil and the U.S.

• About two-thirds of South Africans (67%) feel positive about their ability to keep informed.

• Of South Africans that consume 0-4 pieces of journalism per week, 32% say they keep up very closely; however, among people in other countries who consume the same amount of news, less than 10% say the same (6% Australia, 7% Brazil and 9% U.S.). 

The South African public says digital technology is very important for keeping informed and is positive about its future impact

• A strong majority of South Africans say that digital technology is important for keeping informed, with 84% saying it is very important and 9% somewhat important.

• About three-quarters of people in South Africa (74%) are optimistic about the impact developments in technology will have on their ability to keep informed and 16% are neutral.

• Although a strong majority of the South African public is positive about technology, they report more challenges with it than people in Australia or the U.S. Over half (56%) say that having technology that works is at least somewhat of a challenge in their ability to stay informed.

The South African public uses technology for content-related tasks and is comfortable with journalists doing the same

• Strong majorities of South Africans report using technology “to check the accuracy of something” (67%) and “to make their writing better” (66%).

• The South African public is generally comfortable with journalists using technology, with three-quarters or more reporting acceptance of each use asked about.

The South African public is much more optimistic about an open internet than Australia, Brazil or the U.S.

• In South Africa, eight in ten (79%) are at least somewhat confident the internet will be a place to get and share news openly in the future.

The South African public is relatively positive about AI’s future impact on both journalists’ ability to report and their ability to stay informed

• Strong majorities of people in South Africa (71%) think AI will either have a positive impact on their ability to keep informed or will have no effect one way or another.
• Roughly half of people in South Africa are optimistic (49%) and about one-in-four are neutral (22%).

• We also asked people to consider whether AI will have a mostly positive, negative or neutral impact on “journalists’ ability to report on issues and events.” We found that a plurality of South Africans express a sense of optimism, with 46% saying they think it will mostly have a positive impact.

The South African public is split on how much they care about AI use in reporting

• About one-in-three (32%) in South Africa feel it matters a great deal and about half (52%) say it matters at least a fair amount if AI is used in the reporting process.

The South African public considers multiple factors when deciding if a journalists’ use of AI is okay

• We asked about five factors people might use to decide if a journalist’s use of AI is okay. Slim majorities of people in South Africa say that each factor is at least somewhat important (55-62%).

The South African public has not heard as much about AI as people in Australia, Brazil or the U.S., and most of them have not tried to use generative AI

•  In South Africa, 22% say they have heard a great deal about recent developments in AI, and 17% said they have heard a fair amount — a total of 39%. Majorities in all other countries have heard at least a fair amount (62-73%).

• About a quarter of people in South Africa have tried to use generative AI (27%) in the last year while the same proportion (27%) do not know what it is. 

In conclusion

Our data shows that the South African public recognizes the growing significance of technology in the news landscape and is generally optimistic about its potential, including advancements in AI. Despite this, there is a gap between the importance placed on technology for staying informed and the challenges in having devices that work. Further, while the South African public uses technology and expresses comfort with journalists also using it, compared to people elsewhere they may be less aware of and experienced with recent innovations, including generative AI.

Overall, the data suggests that while the South African public values technology’s role in news consumption, there is a knowledge and usage gap between South Africa and other countries.

Part III: Larger Trends

The clearest common thread across both the South African public and the journalists in Africa is optimism about technology. Both of CNTI’s surveys showed a similar optimism across the Global South, in comparison with the Global North. 

Research focused on the Global South — and Africa in particular — adds further detail about this optimism. The Thomson Reuters Foundation’s 2024 survey of 221 journalists across the Global South found that about 80% of respondents report using AI tools regularly in their work and about half were doing so daily. A 2023 Africa-specific study from International Media Support showed uneven AI adoption across Africa’s public interest media: while Kenyan and South African media outlets were leading in implementation, overall adoption across the continent was relatively low. 

Challenges to implementation across Africa include concerns about transparency, accountability and ethical safeguards — particularly in the absence of official guidelines. Among the participants in the TRF study, 13% said their organizations had official policies about AI use. And most of them were navigating this space independently, as they were largely self-taught, learning by “playing with tools” or using “online courses or guides.”

The 2023 International Media Support study found similar barriers, including a gap in knowledge about AI, resource constraints and concern about algorithmic bias and harm. And a 2023 interview study of 17 journalists from five African countries who had used ChatGPT in their work by January 2023 (soon after its release) revealed an increasing skepticism at generative AI’s early stages. These journalists generally found that outputs were not particularly sophisticated or up-to-date in their contexts. While they saw potential for AI, they also saw serious limitations, especially in localized contexts where the availability of training data may be limited. Similarly, a piece on AI in Kenyan newsrooms highlighted that much of the AI technology is developed from the West, and often trained on data that reflects a global perspective that may not align with Kenya’s local context.

Turning to the African public, there is also a notable sense of cautious optimism about the use of AI in media — with variation across the continent. Both Gregory Gondwe’s 2025 study of 1,960 members of the public from 10 African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) and Mphathisi Ndlovu’s 2024 study on public perceptions of an AI-powered newsreader in Zimbabwe found that while there is moderate trust in AI-generated news overall, it varies widely. Gondwe’s study found significant differences in trust based on age and also explored the role media polarization and exposure to AI-generated content plays in this variation. Ndlovu found that while some audience members liked the use of AI news anchors, others were critical due to their lack of human emotion and accents. Ndlovu highlighted the need for “decolonizing the AI tools in newsrooms,” calling for greater sensitivity to local cultures and languages to increase acceptance across diverse audience groups. 

Overall, studies on African journalists and the public show that implementation has been uneven across the continent. Widespread challenges include lack of policies, knowledge gaps and issues of AI transparency — both in newsrooms explaining its use to consumers and model developers offering insight into the data used to train these systems. From the audiences’ perspective, this transparency is a very important consideration: in general, as found in Gondwe’s study, those who thought newsroom transparency about AI use was important also had somewhat higher trust in AI-generated content.

Last but not least, there is a lot of promising work happening around transparency and localization right now, including AI initiatives being developed by, with and for African journalists and newsrooms. These tools include fact-checking, transcription and data analysis applications.

About these studies

Why we did these studies

Like many parts of the world, newsrooms in Africa are harnessing the potential of AI in their work. However, there are numerous advantages and disadvantages to this quickly evolving technology. Together with the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), the Center for News, Technology and Innovation (CNTI), wanted to explore the perspectives of African journalists’ when it comes to the challenges and opportunities of AI in the news industry. 

This project is part of CNTI’s broader Defining News Initiative which seeks to understand how journalism is defined today. Access to information is not just important for its own sake; it makes democracy possible. In 2024, the United Nations outlined Global Principles for Information Integrity in response to growing challenges around misinformation, disinformation and hate speech. 

The journalist data in this article are a subset from a larger global survey, What It Means to Do Journalism in the Age of AI: Journalist Views on Safety, Technology and Government. The representative data of South Africans are from a series of country-level surveys, What the Public Wants from Journalism in the Age of AI: A Four County Survey.

How we did these studies

How we recruited participants

Journalist survey: Surveys are a snapshot of what people think at a particular moment in time. CNTI collected responses from 433 journalists across 63 countries between October 14 and December 1, 2024.This data highlights the perspective of journalists around the world during that time frame.

CNTI partnered with journalism organizations in multiple continents. The questionnaire was crafted with input from partner organizations who knew the current situations and challenges of their members across various country contexts. These partner organizations also shared the survey with their membership and can be found here. 

The data representing Africa in this article reflects the responses of journalists across the continent, with 75 in Nigeria and another 34 in other African countries (N = 109). The overall data reflects the responses of 433 journalists across 63 countries with 256 of our respondents (59%) coming from three countries: Mexico, Nigeria, and the U.S. Because no global census of journalists exists, no survey can be “fully representative” of all journalists.

South African public survey: Data are from an Infinite Insight RDD CATI/cell phone sample conducted from September 23 to October 16, 2024. The total sample size was 1,012 respondents. The design effect was 1.48 and a margin of error of 3.7 points. The survey was available in English (n = 811), Zulu (n = 138), Sesotho (n = 24), Sepedi (n = 17), Setswana (n = 12) and Xhosa (n = 10).¹ All interviews were conducted by telephone, and the median interview length was 19 minutes and 17 seconds. There were 47 interviewers all of whom were trained. The sample collection age categories were: 18-24, 25-34, 35-49, 50-64 and 65+. This survey was part of a larger four-country project. 

For specific questions about the sample frames, weighting procedures and/or additional survey details, please send an email to the research team at info@innovating.news.

How we addressed attrition

Journalist survey: The survey was lengthy (with an estimated completion time of 20 minutes) and consisted of five distinct sections on different topics. The survey was broken into sections, and we treated each as a drop-off point: that is, if a respondent answered at least one question within a section, non-responses were treated as true non-responses. Respondents who answered no questions within a section were not included within the section’s N.

For transparency, topline tables include both percentages of the full survey N (Percent) as well as percentages of the section N (Valid Percent).

South African public survey: We recoded missing, refused and don’t know responses into a catch-all category to keep the sample sizes consistent across each question that did not explicitly have survey logic (i.e., questions that were asked to every respondent).

How we tested for statistical significance

Journalist survey: This report presents findings for both (1) the overall set of journalists and (2) journalists who reported living in Africa. Thus, the African journalists are nested within the overall results. To test for statistical significance, we compared responses from African journalists with those from non-African journalists to ensure independence between the groups. Responses were compared using Chi-squared proportion tests. We used a standard threshold of p < 0.05 for assessing statistical significance. Differences mentioned in the report text are statistically significant.

South African public survey: We analyzed the results using Chi-squared proportion tests to assess differences in responses between countries. We used a standard threshold of p < 0.05 for assessing statistical significance. Differences mentioned in the report text are statistically significant.

How we protected our data

CNTI did not collect any identifiable information that risked the privacy and confidentiality of participants. For the survey of journalists, data collection was supervised by CNTI staff only. The survey included individual-level information such as gender and the country where one worked and resided. It would be very difficult to identify study participants because CNTI did not collect their personal contact information or contact participants directly and the participants’ personal information was not shared by the partner organizations.

For the survey in South Africa, Infinite Insight, the country vendor, handled data collection. Demographics were collected for weighting purposes. CNTI did not receive specific locations of or contact information for survey participants.

The data are securely stored in an encrypted folder which is only authorized to the core research team at CNTI.
More information about how each survey was administered may be found here for the journalist survey and here for the public survey in South Africa.

Journalist Survey Toplines for Africa

---

Footnotes

1.  These numbers are unweighted. ↩︎