By XU BO and RICK DUNHAM
Global Business Journalism reporters
"Business Journalism and Economic Communication in the Era of Artificial Intelligence" was the theme of the 2023 Tsinghua Business Journalism Forum held on Dec. 1 at Tsinghua University and Bloomberg News.
The forum, Global Business Journalism program’s most prestigious annual event, was created in 2008 during GBJ’s inaugural year. The 2023 forum was sponsored by the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication, the Global Business Journalism program, and the Institute for Global Development at Tsinghua University. It was the first in-person Tsinghua Business Journalism Forum since 2019 because of an interruption caused by COVID-19 restrictions.
The forum invited scholars and experts from many well-known universities in China and internationally, as well as the leading figures from domestic and global financial media, Tsinghua University journalism students and guests from various industries. The participants discussed the theoretical basis, practical application and future development of financial news and economic communication in the era of smart media.
The opening ceremony of the forum was presided over by Professor Hang Min, Associate Dean of the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication, Vice Dean of Institute for Global Development and Director of Tsinghua Center for Economic Communication. In her remarks, Professor Hang reviewed the history of the Tsinghua Business Journalism Forum since it debuted in 2008 and introduced the theme and agenda of the conference.
Liu Binjie, the retired dean of the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication, delivered the first speech. He began by praising the profound achievements of the Global Business Journalism program, which, he noted, has educated more than 800 students from 72 countries and regions since its creation in 2007. He said GBJ taught its worldwide students “the complexity of the Chinese economy” so that they now “understand China’s place on the world stage.” The GBJ program, he said, has “trained new talents for financial journalism and has improved business and economic news around the world.”
Liu, chairman of the Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee of the 12th National People's Congress and former director of the State Press and Publication Administration, said that technological changes have had a profound impact on media development. But he emphasized the importance of truth-seeking in journalism and communication.
“We never forget our mission, our original dream,” he said. “To tell the public the truth.”
Professor Yang Bin, Vice President of Tsinghua, extended a warm welcome to the guests on behalf of the university. He spoke highly of the achievements of the Tsinghua Business Journalism Forum in theoretical exploration and practical improvement in the field of economic communication. He said that Tsinghua University has always been committed to cultivating financial journalism professionals with a deep academic foundation and excellent practical skills. Tsinghua “has trained a lot of journalism talents and they have been working in all corners of the world,” he said.
Zhao Jian, president of the China Economic Media Association, said that "openness, pragmatism and professionalism" are key characteristics of the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication's financial news specialization, led by Global Business Journalism.
“The TSJC is dedicated to training professionals who are keeping up with the times,” he said.
The China Economic Media Association is committed to promoting a more open, connected and innovative economic media ecosystem, he said. It also attaches great importance to promoting exchanges between the industry and academia. He said he hoped that the industry and academia would jointly cultivate high-quality financial reporting and economic communication talents to inject new vitality and innovative impetus into the field of economic news.
Professor Zhou Qing'an, Dean of the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication, affirmed that business journalism “is a big direction for our school.”
“We have been dedicated to business reporting and communication,” he said. “I believe it will be even more important to our future.”
Dean Zhou expressed his heartfelt gratitude to journalists and academics who have offered longtime support to Tsinghua’s Global Business Journalism education.
“Our school will continue to develop business journalism professionals,” he said. “We need to keep innovating in our pedagogies.”
The TSJC dean described a series of challenges and opportunities for journalism and communication in the era of intelligent media, and pointed out that the financial media must adapt to the trends of technological change, seize the opportunities brought by artificial intelligence technology, and deal with the resulting challenges.
Next up was a series of keynote addresses by media industry leaders in China. The session was hosted by Professor Cui Baoguo, Vice Dean of the Academy of Culture and Innovation at Tsinghua University, Director of Research Center for Media Economics and Management, and director of Tsinghua-Nikkei Institute.
Bai Chong'en, Dean of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management and Executive Dean of the Institute for Global Co-development, said it was the duty of the mainstream media to thoroughly and objectively report the multi-dimensional picture of China's economy. In an age of what he called “de-globalization,” it is more important than ever for business journalists around the world to understand China.
“International exchange is more important than ever before,” he said.
At home, Bai said it was the duty of China’s media to create a positive public opinion environment for economic development. He emphasized that the need to shape Chinese public opinion in dealing with the post-epidemic situation, the complicated and changeable international situation and the transformation of China's social governance structure.
Zhang Shuhong, deputy editor-in-chief of Economic Daily, warned of “a new era of violence” on the internet caused by disinformation spread by artificial intelligence.
“A lot of fake news, like poison, exists everywhere,” he said.
Zhang said said Economic Daily is keeping up with the times as far as technology is concerned and is “responding to changes” while telling a “good story” of high-quality economic development in China.
Zhang said he hopes that academia and industry will have more and better cooperation, and will work together to promote the high-quality development of China's economy and tell the story of China's economic development in the “new era,” as proclaimed by Xi Jinping.
Yang Yudong, editor-in-chief of Yicai Media, shared his company's exploration of generative artificial intelligence, including specific practices in using AI to refine content, assist content creation and provide intelligent interactive services.
“A lot of content is not based on news but on our data,” he shared.
He stressed that even in the era of AI, a greater challenge is still how to maintain professionalism. To do that, humans make key editorial decisions.
“We ask AI to collect data, but all the writing is done by us,” he said.
Ren Tianyang, Communist Party Secretary and Chairman of the Southern Finance Omnimedia Group, introduced South Finance's innovative development concept of "Media + Think Tank + Data + Transaction," which is based on media but transcends media. He pointed out that the current production of financial data and financial news has been integrated.
Building technical capabilities is the foundation, he said. Seizing the commanding heights of data is the key. Improving communication power and service power is the core issue. And shaping the all-media innovation ecosystem is the goal. Business journalists have the opportunity to create a higher quality financial media ecosystem only when they are transformed together with high-growth enterprises.
Liu Xuedong (Wen Da), chairman and editor-in-chief of the National Business Daily, emphasized that the media adhere to the essence of news, and creating original content is always the first priority for journalists.
Liu recently won the first prize of the China News Awards for “supervision of public opinion.” Examples are the Mejing brand 100 index and Al short video generation platform. He stressed that the media should turn artificial intelligence, video content and big data models into an opportunity.
“Great content always prevails,” he said.
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Kang Weiping, vice president of Caixin Media, said artificial intelligence “poses many risks” to journalism and society, but she said Caixin has been achieve significant accomplishments in the field of data journalism.
“AIGC cannot replace us and actually helps us,” Kang said, referring to Artificial Intelligence Generative Content. “AIGC will bring more commercial opportunities to us.”
She stressed that the value of Caixin's data goes far beyond the data itself. Caixin’s journalism provides insightful professional analysis and a more comprehensive and in-depth perspective, she said, while ensuring accurate information to help readers better understand and analyze complex economic phenomena.
The panel of international journalist was moderated by Lee Miller, Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University and editor-at-large of Bloomberg News.
“Our job is financial literacy, to teach our students business and financial and economic news and information to provide service to audiences and society,” he said.
Patrick Butler, senior vice president for content and community at the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), cited five challenges created by the growth of AI: spreading disinformation, violations of privacy, job displacement, bias in journalistic content and lack of compensation to journalists who create the stories that end up in AI data sets.
He compared the future of AI to the dawning of the internet age, when the media industry failed to develop strategies to adapt to changing technologies or monetize new opportunities.
“We did fail then,” he said. “We cannot fail this time.”
Wang Feng, chief editor of Financial Times (FT) Chinese website and a visiting professor in the Global Business Journalism program, pointed out that the current problems in the media industry go far beyond a threat from artificial intelligence. Appearing remotely from Hong Kong, he said journalists must maintain a commitment to provide accurate, objective and in-depth information to the public, and to help people better understand the world.
Kayoko Hayama, senior manager for international affairs at Nikkei, reviewed a series of attempts by the company to use AI technology. She said Nikkei was using artificial intelligence to enhance the work of its human staffers and not to replace human-written articles with computer-generated work. She said AI tools can be useful to help with editing, data extraction and text searches.
“The human beings have to be in the driver’s seat to use AI,” she said.
Ken Moritsugu, a Beijing-based reporter for the Associated Press and former visiting professor in the Global Business Journalism program, noted that AI has changed the rules of the industry. He argued that in the face of the challenges posed by AI, news organizations should lead the changes brought about by technology rather than passively accept them.
“AI can assist AP journalists but not replace them,” he said. “We really want to be in front of this change. We really want to develop the expertise ourselves.”
Pam Tobey, Visual Director at Beijing Review magazine and a former visiting professor at Tsinghua University, analyzed AI's strengths and limitations in visual presentation. She said AI can generate basic charts more efficiently, but lacks the judgment and insight of professional graphic artists. While artificial intelligence can plot simple data visualizations, it lacks artistic design capabilities and an ability to decide which data sets are more newsworthy than others.
Rick Dunham, visiting professor of at Tsinghua University and co-director of the Global Business Journalism program, pointed out that disinformation and censorship pose twin challenges to data sets used by artificial intelligence for writing news stories. Because of the proliferation of misinformation, rumors and malicious lies on the English-language internet, AI technology is prone to generating faulty content, he said. In countries that restrict internet content, artificial intelligence may create stories that have a built-in bias. These skewed results can damage the credibility of the media itself, the former National Press Club president told the audience.
The next panel, composed of Chinese journalists, was hosted by Meng Xianli, editor-in-chief of Health Times, a product of People's Daily, and vice chairman of the China Association of Economic Media.
Guo Yuhua, director of CGTN’s financial programming department, shared CGTN’s experience in economic reporting and emphasized the importance of international communication. She pointed out that financial media need to actively participate in the construction of international discourse and provide the world community with a deeper and more objective perspective through international reporting and content dissemination.
He Gang, editor-in-chief of the business news outlet Caijing, pointed out the importance of humans keeping control of the scope of artificial intelligence in the news business.
“Who is the decision-maker?” he asked. “Is it AI or people?”
Li Pai, editor-in-chief of Sina Finance and Economics, talked about the significance of accurately covering the international financial sector, pointing out that Sina Finance and Economics is strengthening its links with global markets through new technologies to provide more timely and comprehensive information services.
Wen Zhao, the executive editor of the Economic Observer, talked about the trend of integration of financial media formats across platforms. He shared experiences of how newspapers and digital media have converged to provide content that meets the needs of different audiences.
Li Wu, vice president of the Interface Finance Association, focused on technology-driven information services. He said data analytics and artificial intelligence can provide more intelligent financial information services to meet the individual needs of users.
Jia Zhuang, editorial board member of the Securities Times, stressed that in the face of technological change, financial and economic media need to constantly innovate, promptly adjust their development strategies, and keep abreast of the latest trends in the industry and technology.
At the end of the morning session, Hang Min, director of the Tsinghua Economic Communication Research Center and co-director of the Global Business Journalism program, summarized the central themes of the earlier presentations. She pointed out that the innovation and transformation of financial media in the AI era is inevitable and that financial media need to find a new niche to survive.
“Content is king,” she said. “Value is the most important criterion for financial media in the era of intelligence.”
In the afternoon, the participants traveled to the Beijing bureau of Bloomberg News by for an exchange of views hosted by GBJ’s Lee Miller and a roundtable discussion.
John Liu, executive editor of Bloomberg News Greater China, welcomed the guests and introduced Bloomberg's cutting-edge use of intelligent tools for producing stories, information analysis and technology used to share data with subscribers.
“We don’t trust AI to write stories because our clients don’t trust AI,” he said. “We use this as a time saver for our reporters so they can focus on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of their stories.”
A keynote panel of Chinese academics described national trends in business journalism education. Tan Yunming, director of the Institute of Financial Journalism at the Central University of Finance and Economics, discussed "The Development Dilemma and Breakthrough Path of Chinese Financial Media.” Wang Qing, Dean of the School of Language and Communication at Beijing Technology and Business University, discussed “The Basic Path of Telling China's Economic Story by Financial Media in the New Era.”
Lin Hui, Vice Dean of the School of Humanities at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, shared her views on “The Transformation of Applied Journalism: Education in the Perspective of New Liberal Arts Thinking.” Zhang Pingpin, Fudan University Master of Journalism and Communication Finance Program Director, discussed the topic “Training and Research Orientation of Financial News Talents Elaborated and Analyzed.”
The forum concluded with a roundtable discussion where GBJ co-directors Hang and Dunham, discussed innovative concepts for improving business journalism in China and around the world. During the session chaired by Qian Jingjing of the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), experts and scholars shared the latest developments in teaching and research.
The participants pledged to continue working to improve and expand business journalism education, and they endorsed increased cooperation between academia and both the media and financial industries.
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