Post by European Broadcasting Union (EBU)

🚨 AI companies are stepping between newsrooms and their audiences – at the cost of public trust. What do we mean? Well, AI assistants mediate how more and more people find news today, but the attribution, sourcing and editorial standards that win that public trust are becoming invisible.   We were joined by Fondation Abeona, the Global Trust Challenge and 5Rights Foundation in alerting the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance, at the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva to this fact yesterday.   News trust has dropped to 37%, the lowest since 2015 (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2026), while AI chatbot use for news keeps climbing. And last October, a joint EBU/BBC study found that 45% of AI assistant responses about the news had significant issues, from sourcing problems to inaccuracies.   But children are especially vulnerable here. They're adopting gen-AI three times faster than adults, typically without adequate safeguards.   That’s why we asked three things of the UN Global Dialogue:   1.    Recognize public service media as trust anchors in national AI governance frameworks. 2.    Require that AI systems used be proven safe for children, accurate and effective before launch, with the burden of proof on developers. 3.    Build open, interoperable standards so information infrastructure isn't unilaterally dictated by tech firms.   Trust in the AI age requires the levels of accountability that public service media provides.