Journalists Face AI Training Needs, Health Crisis Reporting

Health journalists across the globe confront a convergence of unprecedented challenges. They wrestle with artificial intelligence integration in newsrooms, navigate complex reporting on rising healthcare costs, and communicate emerging infectious disease threats to an increasingly wary public. These pressures reshape the landscape of health communication at a moment when accurate, accessible reporting matters more than ever.

Julie Appleby, a senior correspondent at KFF Health News, addressed the affordability crisis in health insurance plans during an appearance on Connecticut Public’s The Wheelhouse on July 22. Her colleague Céline Gounder, editor-at-large for public health, discussed the growing concerns around tick bites on CBS Mornings on July 20, while also examining wildfire smoke and severe heat impacts on CBS’ The Daily Report on July 16. Senior correspondent Renuka Rayasam explored the effects of soaring health costs in Georgia on WUGA’s The Georgia Health Report on July 17, highlighting how patients navigate bureaucratic obstacles to maintain consistent health coverage.

The multiplying demands on health journalists reflect broader shifts in how societies understand and respond to health threats. From insurance accessibility to environmental health hazards, reporters must synthesize complex data streams while maintaining public trust. This challenge intensifies as new technologies transform the tools and processes journalists use daily.

European Journalists Demand More AI Training

The European Federation of Journalists released results of a comprehensive study examining artificial intelligence and work in the media sector. The federation published its official stance on AI use in newsrooms in September 2025, and now presents findings from research conducted with partners at FIA, FIM, and UNI MEI as part of the Atypical Work IV project funded by the European Commission. While journalists generally view artificial intelligence as an opportunity, they express deep concerns about ethical issues surrounding its deployment and request access to more training programs and workshops on AI applications in journalism.

Belgian Arts Consultancy TWIIID authored the report based on a large-scale survey of European members from four federations representing actors, musicians, crew, and journalists. The research team also gathered responses from national-level members of carefully selected unions across these four worker cohorts. The surveys captured a snapshot of how AI affects the working lives of those active in the Media, Arts and Entertainment sector, examining which uses and applications prove most prevalent and how workers perceive them.

The study explores how workers rate their skills needs and workload in relation to rapidly changing AI uses. It identifies concerns about AI impact on creative work specifically while exploring how sector professionals believe AI use in the workplace should be framed regarding safeguards, remuneration, collective bargaining, and policy making. The research acknowledges its temporal limitations, stating these reports do not claim to provide a final or exhaustive account since AI develops rapidly and the perceptions captured reflect a specific moment at the end of 2025.

Journalists Already Embrace AI Tools

Through this report, the EFJ aims to provide a robust, evidence-based foundation grounded in the voices of workers and their representative organizations for the collective bargaining strategies, policy responses, and social dialogue the sector urgently needs. Survey findings reveal that journalists already make extensive use of artificial intelligence, particularly for AI-generated transcriptions and summaries of interviews or recordings, as well as for automatic translation and subtitling to improve the accessibility and reach of journalistic content.

The widespread adoption of these tools demonstrates that technological transformation in newsrooms has already arrived. Journalists do not resist AI integration outright but seek structured support to navigate ethical complexities and maximize beneficial applications while minimizing potential harms. The call for training reflects a pragmatic recognition that professional development must keep pace with technological change.

Outbreak Reporting Reveals Societal Vulnerabilities

The challenges journalists face extend beyond technological adaptation. Reporting on infectious disease outbreaks demands a sophisticated understanding of how societies process uncertainty and risk. In the fall of 2018, scientist Pardis Sabeti and a co-author prepared to publish “Outbreak Culture: The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic,” a book examining what disease outbreaks reveal about societies. Many people felt eager to move on from conversations about infectious disease, as the world stood several years removed from the devastating Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and for many, the crisis felt contained.

“In the book’s final chapter, I argued that another pandemic was not a matter of if, but when. One reviewer described that conclusion as alarmist. Less than two years later, COVID-19 would prove otherwise,” the co-author reflected.

While “Outbreak Culture” focused on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which eventually subsided, the central question that drove the reporting and research remained unresolved: What do outbreaks reveal about us? The book examines the stories societies tell during moments of uncertainty, how institutions communicate risk, how journalists frame emerging threats, how communities respond to fear, and how power shapes public understanding of disease. Ebola served as a lens through which to examine something larger – the culture that emerges around outbreaks.

DRC Confronts Rapidly Growing Ebola Outbreak

Today, the Democratic Republic of the Congo confronts what has become one of its fastest-growing recorded Ebola outbreaks. Those questions feel newly urgent as the outbreak involves the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there is still no approved vaccine or targeted treatment, and has already spread across multiple provinces and into neighboring Uganda. Experimental therapeutics face testing in response to the outbreak even as health systems struggle to keep pace.

Outbreaks function as multidimensional events rather than solely biological phenomena. They operate as social, political, economic, and cultural events that reveal how societies understand risk, trust institutions, and assign responsibility. Outbreak culture describes the narratives, behaviors, policies, and public perceptions that emerge alongside infectious disease events, including public trust in health authorities, media framing, misinformation, resource allocation, and the ways communities respond to public health interventions.

One central argument holds that outbreaks expose the underlying strengths and vulnerabilities of the systems through which societies understand health crises. They reveal who receives trust, who holds authority, and how information flows during moments when uncertainty peaks and stakes reach their highest. For journalists covering these events, the challenge extends beyond reporting facts to understanding and communicating the complex interplay of forces shaping public response.

The Future of Health Journalism

The convergence of AI integration, complex health policy reporting, and outbreak communication creates unprecedented demands on health journalists. These professionals must master new technologies while maintaining rigorous ethical standards, translate technical information for diverse audiences while building trust, and work at unprecedented speed while preserving accuracy. The European study on AI in journalism and the ongoing work of health correspondents covering everything from insurance affordability to emerging infectious diseases demonstrate the sector’s evolution.

Success in this environment requires journalists who combine technical proficiency, ethical awareness, and deep subject expertise. The call for expanded training programs acknowledges that professional development infrastructure must expand to support these multifaceted demands. As health challenges grow more complex and communication technologies evolve rapidly, the journalists who navigate these intersections will shape how societies understand and respond to the health crises that define our era.