Journalism Lab
We prepare journalists to face the challenges posed by generative AI today and tomorrow.
The Starling Journalism Lab brings together journalists and engineers to prototype new ways to restore news readers’ trust in digital media in an age of generative AI.
The Lab convenes academia and industry to build solutions that are open-source and address practical problems. Our impact is demonstrated through real-world implementations and careful testing of breakthrough technologies.
For nearly half a decade, our collaborations and fellowships have supported investigations by world-renowned publications and leading community newsrooms. We augment newsgathering workflows using applied cryptography and decentralized systems to establish the authenticity of digital records and protect journalistic standards.
Our innovative fellowships have won or were finalists for awards from:
What We're Thinking About
Framework
How can we establish trust in our digital records? We apply a novel framework to secure metadata from the moment a journalist captures media to how it is preserved and published. There are three steps to our method:
CAPTURE
How can journalists create a root-of-trust when they capture photos, audio, and video in the field?
STORE
How can we protect the archives of journalists’ records, articles, and metadata against loss and denialism?
VERIFY
Can new content credentials augment the work of editors and expert reviewers of digital media?
Highlights
Authenticated Attributes: An Alternative to Deepfake Detection
Upstream, not downstream: Our approach to establishing the source and history of digital media to build trust
Creating the First Cryptographic Archive for a War Crimes Investigation
A first-of-its-kind cryptographic archive published by Rolling Stone helped reopen a 30-year-old cold case. Released at the dawn…
Authenticating Election Coverage in Hong Kong
A deep dive into the challenges and technical solutions, including C2PA manifests and cryptographic signatures, that enabled the…
Reuters and Canon Deploy Verifiable Photo Newswire
A groundbreaking prototype incorporates Canon camera firmware, Fotoware CMS, and ProvenDB/Hedera to create an immutable,…
Starling Journalism Fellows shine a light on stories that define our world. As AI is poised to produce infinite synthetic content, there’s a need for authenticated investigations to establish a new form of trust.
At Starling, we’re co-creating with journalists new workflows so that audiences can inspect content credentials (or an “authenticity certificate”) to protect today’s news from din of AI noise or tomorrow’s archives from link rot.
We teach fellows to use advanced cryptographic tools and support their storytelling with innovative new technology. The result are powerful. Our investigations have reopened cold cases, earned top industry awards, and rebuilt trust with audiences.
Each year, Starling Lab welcomes a cohort of journalists who are seeking to build trust in their reporting with digital records.
Highlighted Fellow: Kira Pollack – 2024 cohort
Case Studies
Documenting Stockton’s Homeless
Bay City News and Starling Lab pioneer cryptographic tools to authenticate images and expose the truth of homelessness in California.
Setting the Record Straight in Brazil’s Burning Wetlands
Documenting the devastation of Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, this story showcases a collaboration between a writer, a photojournalist, and…
Battling Link Rot
Explore Brandon Tauszik's journey with decentralized tools to protect his multimedia projects from the pervasive threat of disappearing…
Creating the First Cryptographic Archive for a War Crimes Investigation
A first-of-its-kind cryptographic archive published by Rolling Stone helped reopen a 30-year-old cold case. Released at the dawn of…
The 78-Day Archive: Rebuilding Trust in a Digital Age
For 78 days, teams at the Starling Lab and Reuters worked together to document the presidential transition from Donald Trump to Joe Biden…
