Beyond the think tank: how CNTI is building a global ‘do tank’ for journalism’s future

Craig Forman is the executive chair of CNTI. (Photo courtesy of CNTI)

We like to describe ourselves more as a ‘do tank’ than any kind of ‘think tank,’ because you don’t want just to have this material languishing on a bookshelf somewhere.”

Craig Forman

Craig Forman describes the Center for News Technology and Innovation (CNTI) as a “do tank.”

It’s an obvious play on the term “think tank,” coined during World War II. The “think tank” was military jargon describing a place to discuss plans and strategies. The term was co-opted in the 1960s to describe nonprofit policy research organizations.

And the CNTI is certainly a research organization that Forman says fills a void in the publishing world. It does so by making connections globally, gathering input from bright people, peeking into geopolitical systems and breaking down complicated topics to their core. CNTI has already done a lot of heavy lifting for journalism, hence Forman’s turn of phrase.

Forman is the executive chair. He’s also the former CEO of the McClatchy Co. His work history includes the role of venture capitalist and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He’s held senior roles at Time Warner, CNN, Dow Jones and Yahoo. Once upon a time, Forman was a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

During his time at McClatchy, Forman found good research on certain topics hard to come by. Leaders had hunches and feelings but not enough data. He and his colleague and current board member Richard Gingras, then at Google, talked in depth in late 2020 about the challenges that large tech platforms and news businesses around the globe had with finding useful research.

“There were a lot of opinions but fewer facts,” Forman said. “And the two of us said, maybe if we put our heads together, we could think of a way to generate a place, a foundation, a group, that could do this on a global basis. And very happily, we spoke to people who’ve been critical from the outset — people like John Palfrey at the MacArthur Foundation, one of our founding supporters. People like Maribel Perez Wadsworth at the Knight Foundation, who was also a key supporter in the early days, along with others at the Knight Foundation, such as Jim Brady. And so, we were able to build a coalition of the willing, who said, we now have some support and real energy around building this institute.”

Amy Mitchell is the executive director of CNTI. (Photo courtesy of CNTI)

One of the first major decisions was recruiting Amy Mitchell to become the organization's executive director. And this is when the broad-stroke ideas shook hands with a detailed-oriented approach.

Before landing at the CNTI, Mitchell was the managing director of news and information research at the Pew Research Center. During her 25 years with Pew, she helped launch the journalism research program. There, she researched news and information about how the public accesses, engages with and creates news. During her time at Pew Research, she saw similar gaps in research to those that Forman saw.

“As a researcher, I felt like we needed to do a better job as a research community of making sense of all the research that we all do,” Mitchell said. “There’s a lot of other great research out there to do. And if you’re a decision maker and trying to base your decision on data, making sense of all that is hard. As a community, I don’t think we do a good job of helping people get to that point. So, I wanted to help synthesize research and do some, certainly our own, but also help make sense of what's out there and bring the rest of the research community closer together.”      

The CNTI conducts research on some of the most critical problems and issues facing journalism today. It considers the sustainability of an independent press and an open internet to be two key tenets of its mission. Under those two key headliners, CNTI tackles topics such as algorithmic accountability, economic support for news, information and cybersecurity, news engagement and innovation, online harms and disinformation and open distribution and access.

The research done by the Center for News Technology and Innovation (CNTI) fills a research void in the industry by making connections globally, gathering input from bright people, peeking into geopolitical systems and breaking down complicated topics to their core. This graphic is from the research report, “What the public wants from journalism in the age of AI.” (Image courtesy of CNTI)

“We work on issues at the intersection of journalism and technology to enable a diverse, independent news media to maintain an open internet and foster informed policy discussions,” Mitchell said. “That does sound like a lot. There’s a lot packed in there. And ultimately, it comes down to saying, ‘OK, we will use research and evidence.’ Using research and evidence as a foundation to have cross-industry collaborative discussions that get people from journalism, technology, policy and civil society talking to each other.”

Collaboration with key people internationally and across sectors, combined with internal and global research, helps “create action to figure out the best path forward,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said the areas of study overlap and are essential on an international level. As for media independence and safety, she said, “Your readers certainly will all know and are well aware of the increased levels of threats being put against those things around the world. We need diverse journalism that offers the public a choice among fact-based news that is relevant to the public and requires a greater facility, interaction and understanding of technology. A component of sustainability is revenue. … So, when we do our work, all of those components of sustainability are important to have in mind.”

These global ideals of a better world for journalists start with methodology and the details of the research itself.

In May, CNTI updated a study that showed that about half of the surveyed journalists reported their government sought too much control over journalism. CNTI partnered with journalism organizations on several continents to share the survey with memberships. In all, surveys were collected from 433 journalists across 63 countries.

CNTI has done quite a bit of research on the subject of AI, but CNTI’s work doesn’t end with the research. It goes a step further, hence the “Do” in “Do Tank.”

“Research is the first step,” Mitchell said. “You have to do research to get the rest of it. … What I'd say is, from that comes the discussion about the evidence, right?”

CNTI holds what it calls “convenings.” It brings experts from around the industry to interpret the data and figure out how the data might point to solutions.

“We did an international survey of journalists that looked at AI,” Mitchell said. “We did an issue primer on the complexity of how these things touch journalism; we looked at language and policy in that space; we bring all of that to have a convening. We had three convenings on AI in journalism. One was all around definitions. What are we even talking about here? It was nearly a day-long working session, and no more than two dozen people were talking in the room.”

Once definitions were agreed upon, a second convening was held, reviewing policies and actions. They discussed watermarks being used in AI, how to talk to the public about uses of AI and journalism, even appropriate compensation for access to content and many other topics.

“And so. we lay that out saying, ‘Well, here’s the first thing to start with,’” Mitchell said. “What is the right answer here? And where do we as a society want to land? If we’re going to put down the policy right now, the policy will be different. So, how do we think more about what this should be so that we actually have a policy that functions together? We look at the different policies from questions around journalism sustainability, including how they safeguard or potentially raise journalistic independence. Who’s the authority? Who’s the body that has the authority to determine this? Where does the public interest come in? Is the public mentioned in these policies? What are the ways that it is serving the public interest?”

AI conversations have overlapped discussions about misinformation and how policies intended to rein in fake accounts can have unintended consequences for journalists. CNTI reviewed 32 pieces of “fake news” policies in 30 different countries. CNTI again examined definitions and found only seven of the 32 policies explicitly defined fake news.

“The omission of those definitions made them very open to interpretation by whoever has the authority in those cases, which in many cases was the government itself,” Mitchell said. “This is why looking at the language of the policies just becomes important to have fully informed discussions.”

The longer you talk to Mitchell about the work at CNTI, the deeper and deeper the details go into how research is done and why it is done. As a 501(c)(3) organization, CNTI does not serve as a lobbyist, but CNTI’s findings are available to anyone in the industry.

“We like to describe ourselves more as a ‘do tank’ than any kind of ‘think tank,’ because you don’t want just to have this material languishing on a bookshelf somewhere,” Forman said. “We did make it very clear from the outset … that we wanted our material to be available to everyone, which means the industry. It's already been used widely in the industry. It means technology players, including the platform companies and civil society players from government to NGOs, who are interested in the cause of progressive freedom and strengthening open access to news and information. Our goal was, as much as anything else, to make sure that we make informed choices, whether we’re making policy or whether lawmakers are considering new rules and regulations based on real information.

“The one takeaway is to think of us as a resource and a partner in a trusted way, to learn and to accelerate your development with technology and civic society. Consider CNTI as the place to go for credible research-based quantitative and qualitative solutions to help you advance your business faster.”

Mitchell leads a staff of eight people, according to CNTI’s website. Its executive board includes former Washington Post and Boston Globe editor Marty Baron, Dr. Sangu Delle, Gingras, Paula Miraglia, Maria Ressa and Marietje Schaake. Its advisory committee comprises an impressive international roster from a cross-section of sectors, including journalism, academia and technology. It even includes the president of Finland.

“Not only is the information environment global, but we all share so much,” Mitchell said. “We share experiences, we can learn from each other in valuable ways, and what we do also ultimately impacts people in other parts of the world.”

Bob Miller has spent more than 25 years in local newsrooms, including 12 years as an executive editor with Rust Communications. Bob also produces an independent true crime investigative podcast called The Lawless Files.