Theorizing Distributed Journalistic Authority Amid Newsfluencers, Algorithms, and Generative Systems

Who’s a Journalist in the Age of AI? addresses a critical development in the news media. In this talk, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media faculty member, Deb Aikat, PhD, will discuss how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) reconfigures the epistemic boundaries of journalistic authority, credibility, and public verification in democratic discourse. 

Dr. Aikat will discuss how AI is reshaping press freedom at a time when public trust in media has sunk to 28%, according to Gallup’s 2025 survey. He studies the shifting information landscape in the U.S. and India — the world’s oldest and largest democracies — tracing how digital platforms empower people to publish, protest, and participate in civic life beyond traditional newsrooms.

Dr. Deb Aikat is a professor in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

A former journalist, Deb Aikat (pronounced EYE-cut), is a tenured full professor in the UNC-Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media who is reimagining the future of a free press in the age of AI.

Aikat theorizes how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the free press as a democratic institution. When Deb arrived at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1995, the internet was still new terrain. He launched the journalism school’s first online course and helped build what would become the university’s online master’s program in digital communication. Three decades later, he’s studying one of the biggest transformations to ever face the news industry: generative AI.