Antonio Zappulla, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, joins Edelman’s Justin Blake to explore the urgent challenges facing independent journalism in today’s volatile information landscape. From the rise of autocracies to the flood of online misinformation and the rapid evolution of AI, Antonio discusses how media organizations can uphold integrity, adapt to disruption, and cut through the noise. “We’re living in a post-truth society,” he says, emphasizing the need for credibility in modern journalism.
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Hi, this is Richard Edelman, and you’re listening to The Trustmakers. Hi, I’m Justin Blake, Executive Director of the Edelman Trust Institute.
The current media landscape feels particularly challenging. We get our news on TikTok and Instagram. Headlines compete with memes for attention. And AI-generated content is blurring the lines between what’s real and what is not. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer found that public trust in media is stubbornly low, with growing concern that journalists intentionally spread misinformation.
So how do we make sense of it all? How do we protect the role of journalism as a force for truth and accountability in such a noisy, fast-moving environment? My guest today is someone who’s thought deeply about those questions, Antonio Zapula. He’s the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, which works at the intersection of media, law, and data to build more free, fair, and informed societies.
Before leaving the foundation, Antonio was executive producer at Bloomberg Television, where he oversaw news and documentaries across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Antonio, welcome to The Trustmakers.
Thank you, Justin. Thank you for having me.
One of the key focus areas of the Thomson Reuters Foundation is to bolster the resilience of independent media. Why is this so important, and in which ways are you doing that?
Well, the resilience of independent media is essentially the resilience of our democratic society. We believe independent media is a key pillar of any free, fair, and informed society. And we believe so because it’s based on facts. Accurate and balanced and impartial journalism drives transparency, it drives accountability, which in turn strengthens democracy.
And the facts on the table are pretty stark. If you look at the latest DEM analysis report that came out this year looking at 2024, it tells us a very petrifying story, which is that global autocracy is on the rise. We are seeing a number of countries, 45 countries in fact, moving towards autocracy. In fact, the number of autocracies around the world currently has surpassed the number of democracies for the first time in 20 years.
And nearly three out of four people in the world, that’s 72% of people, live in autocracies. And this, by the way, is the highest numbers since 1978. And combining this with an increased polarization and a rise in disinformation, we have the situation where we are right now.
And so in this context, bolstering independent media is critical to countering the backsliding of democracy at a time when journalism is being hijacked to serve the will of the powerful and stifle critical scrutiny. But also, as you were saying, Justin, at a time where obviously we’re hearing an increase in distrust in journalists and journalism.
And we’re quite uniquely positioned to do this, to counter this. We do obviously conduct media development work, but also legal work that helps journalists navigating the increased risks that they face from a legal perspective. But we also do a lot of work mixing this unique expertise of media development and legal expertise towards journalism excellence.
And then obviously we’re guided by the trust principles of Reuters and of Thomson Reuters, which means we’re not an advocacy organization and we’re not politically affiliated.
A minute ago, you talked about the rise of autocracies across the world. And you wrote about this in a recent op-ed in The Guardian around the threats facing journalists. You wrote that op-ed on World Press Freedom Day. You gave some great examples in the op-ed. Can you give an example that might make this a little bit more clear to some of our listeners?
Sure. We’re seeing around the world an increase in lawfare. So essentially journalists becoming victims of legislation that is weaponized against them. And what we’ve seen, we’ve done also a report with Columbia University two years ago, is that journalists are facing new challenges, which are very complex and more sinister.
So we’ve gone beyond the traditional, if you want, risk of having to fend off a libel or defamation lawsuits. We’re seeing a lot of journalists instead having to grapple with a number of times cases that are really trying to underminethe credibility of the journalist itself by, for example, having journalists, and this is a perfect example. You know, if you look at Maria Resta case, being accused of money laundering or being foreign agents.
And so the piece that I wrote on The Guardian on Press Freedom, World Press Freedom Day, really looks at the issue of the increase of foreign agent laws, which obviously stem from Russia. But we’ve seen foreign agent laws being adopted in Georgia and in other countries around the world.
And I think the challenge with foreign agent laws is that at a moment in time in which we’re still seeing a lot of malign foreign influence, if you look at, for example, what’s happened around the elections here in Europe last year, even the interference in the UK and journal elections from malign foreign agents, there is still a need to have foreign agent laws.
But the problem is that, again, because this legislation, this piece of legislation are very often vaguely written, they do create essentially a weapon in the hands of leaders that don’t like dissent, that don’t like investigative reporting, and they don’t like to be scrutinized by the media, to be essentially calling out journalists, accusing them of being foreign agents if they receive, for example, foreign funding, and essentially bankrupting entire news organizations, because obviously the consequences from a legal perspective are dire, but also discriminating and really denting the reputation of journalists and journalism.
And that’s exactly what we’re seeing with our weaponization of the law report that really looks at how journalists, again, are accused of money laundering, lese majeste, being foreign agents, receiving foreign funding.
And so it’s a whole ecosystem that is really under threat because of the weaponization of the law. So foreign agent laws might have been created with good intent and also have some valuable use, but are now being used in a way that’s quite damaging? Absolutely. That’s exactly the gist of the entire piece. You summarize it really well.
It’s an interesting read, not because I’ve written the piece, but because it really gives you a sense of how this trend is really spreading around the world at a really, really fast rate. And there are opportunities to stop this if civil society perhaps comes together at the right time, if there is more sense of urgency and vigilance on what the legislative process is doing and how it’s shaping up.
But also there are really significant financial consequences when legislation such as this takes place. We’ve seen the pressure, for example, in Turkey and how this legislation didn’t go through precisely because of the fear of creating a hostile environment that will deter, for example, foreign direct investment from coming into the country.
So again, a really interesting way to understand how the independence of media is not only directly correlated to democracy, but also directly correlated to GDP and investment in countries.
I want to try to make another tie to what you’re observing here, which is in a world where 70% of people in the 28 countries that we survey for the Trust Barometer, 70% of respondents believe journalists and reporters are deliberately misleading the public.
So if that’s the environment that these journalists are operating in, if that’s the environment that these laws are being twisted, how do journalists begin to defend themselves? And does there need to be greater belief and trust in journalists in order to stem the tide of some of these noxious trends?
The truth is that we’re living in a post-truth society, right, where opinions are becoming facts. And this goes some way in explaining the election, for example, of authoritarian leaders in democratic countries.
And these authoritarian leaders that are now being democratically elected, by the way, have a lot in common if you think about it. They champion a regulated technology. They clearly take advantage of it. They bypass the media and speak to their constituencies directly. They exploit fears stemming from income inequality, rise in immigration trends. They champion a nationalist protectionist agenda. They are openly hostile to the media.
And they often introduce legislation, precisely to your point, Justin, that cripples independent media. But they also foster a narrative of persecution by the elites when they are held accountable by the media or the judiciary, for example.
So I think the importance of good quality media to continue to fulfill its mission of delivering fair and accurate journalism has never been more important. But to your question, I mean, what can journalists do? I think, first of all, get to know your audience. Be obsessed with your audience from a business perspectivenow becomes even more important. And there’s some really good examples here of some newsrooms and news outlets that are really doing a good job in that space. I’m thinking, top of my head, of the Global Mail in Canada or DFT here in the UK. They’re literally opening up the newsrooms with events. I mean, I’ve seen, I think, DFT yesterday advertising an event where they are going to be editing the weekend edition of the newspaper in an open space. And they’re leading with names. So they are fostering a personal relationship with their writers.
And again, going back to the Edelman Trust Barometer, I remember one of the key findings in the latest report was that, yes, trust is declining, but who do people trust? They trust their local doctor, people that they know personally. So similarly, we are seeing this shift in the media ecosystem where personalities and journalists with their name, their face, actually strengthening their relationship with the audience, which is a great thing.
Obviously, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword because at this point, the media outlet is strongly relying on a personality who can obviously leave and take away with them their audiences. But I also would say goes deeper than that. I think we need to invest in education and in critical thinking.
And I remember, and you might remember this as well, the day after the Brexit referendum here in the UK, the top questions that were asked on Google, so the top searches on Google were:
What is the EU?
What does it mean to leave the EU?
Which countries are in the EU?
What will happen now that we left the EU?
How many countries are in the EU?
So I would say definitely bring back investment in civic education and critical thinking. We need to teach young people about democracy. We need to teach them about politics, about voting, about human rights, about justice, about the law, about the roles of citizens in government, the role of the media, the information literacy. And this will help people develop the knowledge skills, the attitudes, and the way to be informed, engaged, and in a responsible manner in society. Civic education is crucial for fostering a strong and healthy democracy. And we haven’t invested globally in civic education.
And also invest in critical thinking. I mean, I appreciate that we need to invest in STEM and obviously technology is going to be driving a significant percentage of GDP growth in every country. But we also need to invest in teaching history, teaching philosophy, encourage a healthy, fact-based debates in school, invest in media literacy at school level, understanding what is news, what is opinion, how accurate is news, how is news generated, the value of investigative reporting. We cannot take the foot off the pedal right now.
Antonio, that was a really interesting answer because you went from what journalists can do to what society can do to help build back trust in independent journalism. I’m curious, do you think there’s a role that business can play in supporting trust in journalism? I think so. And I think that, I mean, the answer is not straightforward, but I think there is a, if you want, a societal case to argue that perhaps business collectively should contribute to supporting independent journalism.
And we’re seeing, I mean, I’m not even going into talking about local journalism because that’s, you know, there’s a terminology that’s being created, which is news deserts, which refers to a number of metropolitan areas that no longer have a local paper. So I’m not even going to enter that conversation. But even if you look at national outlets, with very few exceptions, I’m thinking top of my head of the New York Times, they’re all struggling. They’re all struggling to meet ends meet and they need to keep people on payroll.
They’re dealing with, again, yet another enormous transformation, which is obviously AI implementation in the newsroom, which will inevitably accelerate the ability of journalists to report but will make some roles redundant and no longer viable. So I think there is an argument to be made where business as a wider community can put some money aside in some sort of mechanisms that obviously might vary according to the country of questioning to support independent journalism.
I think the message that that will send, again, going back to the Trust Edelman Barometer, where it’s very clear that business is the most trusted institution, is that journalism matters. And journalism matters for business, journalism matters for democracy. I remember I was having a conversation with Brad Smith of Microsoft who said that journalism matters for democracy and democracy is good for business. And I think that’s a perfect way of summarizing it.
And that’s why I think having a very strong endorsement from the wider business community towards independent media could make a difference. That’s a great way of summarizing it, for sure. You mentioned AI and the threat that AI has in terms of staffingof newsrooms and certainly changing newsrooms, reforming newsrooms. But also, of course, there’s this question about ethics around AI, misinformation related to AI. I know your foundation has done a lot of work and study in this area, so would love your thoughts. So we’re doing a lot of work, as you can imagine, around AI, because the work that we do in general with newsrooms looks at independence and sustainability, editorial standards, legal support for journalists. We do a lot of work supporting media in exile, but also we’re doing a lot of work looking at tech and implementation of technology in the newsroom. At the moment, we’ve done a lot of work that looks precisely at ethical AI adoption. We’re doing this work still, both with the Patrick James Gavin Foundation and Microsoft.
We are supporting local newsrooms in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America to strategically develop AI implementation within their news gathering operations and businesses, but also to develop policies that look at ethical implementation of AI.
But I would say we’ve just done recently a survey to some of our grantees and people we work with, and it was just a bit of an experiment. So we sent the report out, we kept it alive for about a week. And in a week, we had over 220 responses from journalists in more than 70 countries, just to show the level of appetite and interest towards the topic.
We asked them questions around AI, if they were using AI in the newsroom, if they were using it regularly, what kind of framework they were using it within. The findings really demonstrate that:
80% of the people that we polled told us that they are using AI in a wide range of tasks.
Over half of them express high level ethical concerns.
The large majority of the people that we polled across the 70 countries have no guidelines.
So they were essentially self-starters. They were essentially experimenting with AI without any organizational framework. They had set thoughts. And again, what we found is that the barrier to entrance is now very low because these tools are much more affordable than they were before. So journalists can individually play with headlines, with SEO optimization, with summarization, with translation, with note taking.
But at the same time, organizationally, the barrier to excellence is now much higher because obviously you need to continue to invest in training. You need to look at the governance of your newsroom. You need to have policies. And so the barrier to entrance is low, but the barrier to excellence is very high.
This point around the lack of frameworks is actually quite terrifying because again, essentially this implementation is happening, especially in smaller newsrooms without any strong ethical mandate or ethical framework.
So what are your recommendations to implement those ethical frameworks? Our recommendation is to really look at the specifics of your newsroom and then get help. And so we are helping organizations around the world to better understand how they can use AI more effectively in order to maximize, for example, audience reach in order to, for example, having a sister publication in another language.
But at the same time, we then review the uniqueness, if you want, and then we draft policies that might work for them that are based on the specifics, the specific needs of those newsrooms. So essentially don’t be shy and ask for help if you need help. And whether it’s going to be ourselves or another organization, it’s important that you look at best practice and you look at that best practice and adopt it in the context of your own newsroom.
Do you see a scenario where AI can actually play a helpful role in terms of building trust in independent media? I think trust is such a complex issue that we haven’t been able to figure out already. So I don’t really know whether AI will play a role in building trust. Personally, I doubt it.
But I think AI can really play a role in propelling good journalism. If it’s used in a way that allows faster and more accurate reporting and it makes that accessible to different geographies, for example, it makes it more customized to the audience that you’re trying to reach.
I think there is huge potential in summarization of articles. I think there is huge potential for personalization of content. I think there’s huge potential in reducing drastically the workforce, for example, to make a number of newsletters that are on an article that target different demographics, for example.
So I think there is huge, there’s a huge opportunity if journalists are trained how to use AI. Becauseby the way, beyond the ethical frameworks, I mean, learning how to use AI as a journalist requires a level of training and prompting and understanding what’s most effective in order to produce the desired outcome. But I think it will definitely play a role and is already, by the way, playing a role in strengthening the efficiency of especially smaller newsrooms that don’t have significant resources. Whether it will foster trust within news, within the ecosystem, I don’t know, but I really severely doubt it.
At the top of this conversation, you talked about what you’ve done in the legal space. And can you talk a little bit about what Thomson Reuters Foundation does in this space and maybe connect that to some of the themes we’ve been talking about so far? Sure. I mean, we at the Foundation, we have three pillars of work:
Building the resilience of independent media.
Access to Law.
Responsible Business.
And through these three lenses or areas of work, we work to strengthen free, fair and informed societies. And the legal work that we do helps civil society organizations and independent media to remain sustainable and to be able to fulfill their mission.
So we have within our Access to Law portfolio, we have a program called Trust Law, which is the largest pro bono legal platform in the world. To date, we have leveraged something like $150 million of pro bono hours. The way Trust Law works is essentially a network. We have over 100,000 lawyers all around the world in the network and over 6,000 NGO and independent newsrooms, which are part of the ecosystem. And we help them connecting with lawyers that conduct pro bono work. And the work is oftentimes operational, but at times it’s also it takes the shape of legal research. And this legal research is actually really important because it can really drive policy change around the world.
And so, for example, we’ve done a lot of legal work around AI, understanding the copyright implications of the use of AI. But we’ve really done legal research that, for example, looks at the weaponization of the law or legal research that looks at specific issues that NGOs and civil society organizations are championing. I would say this is one of the most strategic areas of our work, especially when it’s combined with our traditional media development work, because we’re able to help organizations that are working in the space of media through an additional, giving them an additional boost by looking at their legal resilience, which especially at a time when, again, tying that up with what I was saying earlier, how talkers are taking over the world, literally bolstered their resilience and their ability to continue to withstand and to continue doing their work.
Great. The third pillar you mentioned is responsible business. Can you touch on that? Sure. We connect similarly to the way we work with lawyers with companies that continue to be doing work around responsible business. And we have two portfolios within this framework:
Workforce transparency.
WDI, that stands for Workforce Disclosure Initiative, that engages over 100 companies with a market cap of over $10 trillion.
And we collect data voluntarily that pertains to workforce operations and supply chain. And the data is then given to investors. They use that data to make investment decisions. And the investors have over $8 trillion of asset under management. Now we’re launching a new research in partnership with UNESCO that translates and, if you want, takes the framework that UNESCO has created, the recommendations on AI, which has been adopted and signed by over 170 countries.
And we have created another questionnaire, again, a voluntary questionnaire for companies. And we will be asking them to disclose how they essentially use AI across their services and operations. And the goal of this questionnaire is to obviously create a risk mitigation tool for companies, to give investors, again, more transparency around the way AI is being embedded by companies within their operations and services, to create more trust within the ecosystem of consumers, who would be having a better agency and more of a choice in terms of what they buy and the products that they want to buy that are generated by, obviously, companies that are using AI in their products and services.
And also really creating, we have this ambitious goal of creating a rich database that looks at AI adoption so that governments can use this database also to inform policy action. So the ideais to create a world, a large database around the world that marks AI implementation. And we’re asking questions such as: Do you have an AI strategy? strategy?
Who’s in charge of your AI strategy?
What is the implication on your workforce?
What is the impact on your carbon footprint?
Are you using open source data tools or are you customizing your tools?
Issues of data bias, whether they are aware of potential risks of a privacy breach.
So it’s really an eye opener for a lot of companies. And I would say in particular for SMEs and startups that don’t have a robust governance framework given where they are in the stage of their life as a company. And so it could be really an interesting repository of data also for primary investors. We launched this in November of 2024, our trust conference, and we’re going to go to market in July 2025 this year.
Am I right that that repository of AI data is also useful in the work that you’re doing around AI and journalism? Absolutely. Although we’re not necessarily looking at, we’re not going sector specific. We really want to, at least in the first iteration, keep this as broad as possible. But definitely journalists, especially investigative journalists that want to look at and understand the implications of AI adoptions might find some value in it. But investigative journalists find value in a lot of things that you and I don’t even think of.
You started with the rise of autocracies around the world. We talked a bunch about the threats of AI. What’s a reason to be optimistic in this moment in time? I think the reason to be optimistic is in the fact that democracy has proven in a long timeline of history to be relatively successful in promoting peace and prosperity. And so I think that the system will somehow generate the right anti-corps to fight any backlash of democracy. That at least is my hope.
And I see three key ingredients in this resistance, if we want to use the word resistance:
The role that the media continues to play in shining a light on facts and making sure that facts remain facts and they’re not confused with opinions.
Civil society, which is increasingly under attack in autocratic societies.
The legal community.
And if you look at what’s happening today, both, actually the three of them, are increasingly under attack. And those are, by the way, the key stakeholders of the Thompson Reuters Foundation: the legal community, the media community, and civil society. And going back to your earlier point, the other missing stakeholder here is business. And I think business has an important role to play now more than ever.
Antonio, thank you so much for your insights and for your work and the work of the Thompson Reuters Foundation. And to our listeners, thank you for listening to The Trustmakers. Thank you, Justin. Thank you for tuning into The Trustmakers, an Edelman podcast in partnership with Advertising Week, where we speak with leaders and other trust builders across institutions. See you next time. Thank you.
