AI in the News: Does More Disclosure Build Trust or Hurt It?

Kari Jaaskelainen

15 Jan 2026 — 1 min read

What they studied

As newsrooms adopt AI, researchers tested how different disclosure levels affect readers' trust and behavior.

40 people read politics and lifestyle articles with no, one-line, or detailed AI disclosures; AI help was low or high.
They measured trust, source-checking, and subscription choices, plus ran interviews.

What they found

Trust dropped only with detailed disclosures.
Source-checking rose for both one-line and detailed disclosures, strongest for detailed.
Subscriptions tracked trust: they dipped when disclosures were very detailed.
Topic interest drove fact-checking more than trust did.
About two-thirds preferred detailed disclosures; others wanted a simple label with detail on demand.

Why it matters

Not every AI label causes a transparency dilemma. A light-touch notice plus optional deeper info may balance openness with trust.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.09620v1

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.09620v1

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#AI #Journalism #Transparency #NewsTrust #HCI #UX #Media #AIethics

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