About TCU 360
TCU 360 is the news website of TCU Student Media. It is student-led and faculty advised. Our mission is to develop aspiring journalists who use accurate and ethical reporting to inform and serve people invested in TCU. The website is updated daily with news and features written by student journalists.
It is also home to The Skiff, TCU’s weekly student newspaper; weekly shows TCU News Now (newscast), The Leap (pop culture) and Unscripted (sports); Image, a biannual digital magazine. The Ad Lab is the sales office for TCU Student Media.
TCU Student Media is part of the Department of Journalism in the Bob Schieffer College of Communication. All staffers are expected to help cultivate a newsroom culture that is inclusive and welcoming.
For information about the rules and guidelines we adhere to as an online news publication, please see our terms of service. We are proud to partner with Parse.ly, who provides us with an innovative data analysis suite developed specifically for newsrooms.
Visit our Who We Are page for information about our current staff and advisers, and for joining the staff.
AI Ethics Policy
This policy was based in part on policies put forth by NPR, Associated Press, The New York Times, The Texas Tribune and University of Oklahoma’s and University of Maryland’s student media teams. TCU 360 does not adhere fully to any of these policies on their own.
What is AI?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is understood as machines completing tasks that would normally require human intelligence to complete. Many people use AI everyday: Google, PowerPoint, Grammarly, smartphones, online advertising, email spam filters, doctor’s office, social media, air conditioners, etc.
Generative AI (GAI), such as chat bots Chat GPT and Google Gemini, are more creational. Instead of just operating on a simple internal programmatic system, GAI models draw from a system of sources (often the entire web). The content it is generating is original, in a sense, as it is not pulled directly from a single source, but instead from pieces of many sources to create text, images, videos, audio, etc.
As Artificial Intelligence gets better and better at mimicking the human experience, it becomes increasingly important that journalism remain open to new tools without sacrificing our integrity or humanity. Our goals are to increase newsroom efficiency, using the tools at our disposal to do our best reporting. Our main concerns revolve around AI’s tendency to err, show bias and/or plagiarize.
The policies here are impermanent and subject to change upon new discoveries, but TCU 360 is always committed to ethical, critical and human-sourced journalism across the web, film and social platforms.
Where Do We Use AI?
We use Generative AI sparingly, for menial data-related tasks that take little skill but lots of time. This could include sorting lists and recognizing patterns in large swaths of data.
GAI aside, we use AI transcription softwares, data visualization tools, and some of the AI tools built into our audio editing software, our content management system and Google and Microsoft products.
We also use PowerNotes and Notebook LM to assist in research organization and sourcing with appropriate skepticism and human verification.
Our Bottom Lines
- TCU 360 will not use generative AI to write passages of any length to be published or aired, including headlines, captions and descriptions.
- TCU 360 does not use AI voices or videos in our shows or published on our website.
- Images, illustrations and videos seen on the website and social media are not substantially altered or generated with AI.
- TCU 360 reporters will not feed anonymous or breaking information to large language models.
- TCU 360 editors will not rely on Grammarly or other editing AI software to edit.
- TCU 360 will treat everything from generative AI as an unvetted source.
- Any new uses of AI or exceptions to the rules above must be approved by an editor and subsequently publicized in an editor’s note on the article with full transparency.