The third of Arthur C. Clarke’s famed laws, formalised in a well-known but rarely seen cryptic letter to Science in 1968, presciently describes the indistinguishability between magic and sufficiently advanced technology.
It’s an idea that feels particularly relevant in an age where AI generates text, visuals, and videos at blistering speed. The results can seem magical—at times wondrous, at others ominous.
This term on the MA Multimedia Journalism programme, we’ve been exploring how this ‘magic’ changes journalism—not as abstract musings, but through practical challenges. From AI-powered, multilingual news bulletins to experiments with animated videos, we have played at the frontiers.
How did it go? To capture the highlights, we’ve compiled The Elf’s Report—a playful look back at a term defined by curiosity, creativity, and innovation.
For those interested in diving deeper, here are some of the key moments from our term:
- Natasha Salloum’s award-winning documentary, Four Years Forward, a powerful story of Beirut’s resilience after the 2024 port blasts. Watch it here.
- Our innovative US Election coverage, Project L, featuring AI-generated music, avatars, and art. Read our multimedia feature, How we created a song and dance about the US election with AI avatars.
Multilingual newsbelletins
You can access our multilingual AI-powered news bulletins below:
Tamil
Hindi
French
Russian
Norwegian
A song for AI
We also created an AI-generated song to capture the essence of everything we’ve explored this term. Oh, what a world we help create is crafted with AI, of course, to reflect on the human challenges of wielding this ‘magic.’
The question of how to wield AI responsibly is being explored by many: Agnes Stenbom and colleagues at Nordic AI Journalism, JournalismAI at LSE, researchers at Reuters, and initiatives at ONA and CUNY, to name just a few.
Consider our song a small note in the larger symphony—or cacophony—of questions and possibilities that surround us.
May we wield this magic with a human heart.
