Founded in 2018 by the Canadian Journalism Foundation, today 1,000+ newsrooms in 100+ countries participate in World News Day on Sept. 28.
The global awareness day recognizes that trusted journalism matters more than ever. Trusted journalism plays a vital part of AI safety considerations, by helping deepen public understanding of what it all means.
That's also why the AI Safety Foundation partnered with the Canadian Journalism Foundation in 2025 for the CJF Hinton Award for Excellence in AI Safety Reporting.
While AI offers great potential for positive change, responsible development places safety considerations at the forefront. Trusted journalism is part of the solution, helping deepen public understanding of what it all means.
CJF's news release describes the three 2025 shortlisted finalists:
Nam Kiwanuka and the team at TVO's The Thread (Chantale Dahmer, Ali Zaidi and Diego A. Garcia)
For How AI is turning your image into an explicit deepfake. The episode examines non-consensual deepfakes targeting girls, featuring Toronto students' experiences, expert insights, legal gaps, policing challenges and advocacy for protections and digital rights reform. “The terrorization of women at scale with near-zero accountability was palpable. The situation it presented felt like a civilizational step backwards from the progress we have made towards gender equality,” remarks jury member Matthew Lee. “The piece made clear that the proliferation of AI tools capable of generating nonconsensual intimate imagery cannot be adequately addressed through legal prohibition or platform moderation alone.”
Craig Silverman, co-founder of Indicator, with co-founder Alexios Mantzarlis, and co-authors Santiago Lakatos and Benjamin Shultz
For three articles from Indicator's body of reporting on AI nudifiers: AI Nudifiers Continue to Reach Millions — and Make Millions, Nonconsensual Nude Generators Had Another Banner Year. What Will It Take to Defeat Them? and Meta Ran 4,000 More Ads for AI Nudifiers. That May Not Be the Worst Part. These tools of abuse allow anyone to turn a single photo of a person into a realistic pornographic image or video without the subject's consent and are used by millions of people around the world to abuse women and girls. Jury member Cillian Crosson calls the series “impressive accountability journalism,” noting, “Their reporting has already produced concrete results — Google revoked SSO for 23 sites and Meta removed thousands of ads promoting nudifying sites.”
Rory White, of Canada's National Observer (with additional contributions from David McKie)
For his three-part investigative series, including A weaponized AI chatbot is flooding city councils with climate misinformation and Tracking the network behind the campaign, uncovering a group that used artificial intelligence to create persuasive climate disinformation targeting local politicians across Canada, exploring cross-governmental knowledge sharing as a solution and introducing a purpose-built tool that makes coordinated messaging detectable across more than 500 local governments. The reporting enabled a real-time intervention in Cochrane, Alta., where councillors voted to remain in the program. Jury chair Nikita Roy calls the series “A strong solutions-oriented investigation that not only exposes but demonstrates a real-world intervention.”
Read all finalists' submissions and see the winner on the CJF Hinton Award page. The award is generously supported by Richard Wernham and Julia West.
Entries for the 2026 award, with a $10,000 prize, will open later this year. Follow AISF on LinkedIn for updates.