Conference organisers say it's never been more important to protect authentic news media.

AFP CEO Fabrice Fries called on news organisations to "strengthen their voice" and resist the growing influence of big tech in his opening address at a workshop in Paris last week.

Organised by AFP, the BBC and Media Cluster Norway, with support from the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), the event focused on safeguarding image metadata through the C2PA standard, also known as Content Credentials.

Fries emphasised the need for the media to hold its ground and maintain control over how content is shared and verified in the digital age. Eric Baradat, AFP's global news deputy director for photo and archives, reiterated the agency’s commitment to transparency, adding: "This transparency builds trust."

More than 40 representatives from over 20 news organisations, including CBC-Radio Canada, Deutsche Welle, France TV, ITV, NHK and Al Jazeera, attended the full-day workshop. Topics included carrying provenance metadata from creation to publication and the role of redaction in maintaining content integrity.

Judy Parnall, principal technologist at BBC Research and Development, highlighted the importance of providing users with detailed media provenance. "Trust is earned. At the BBC, we’ve seen that users engage more when we show them how news is made, with provenance details like when and where an image was taken," she said.

Helge O. Svela, CEO of Media Cluster Norway, emphasised the need for collaboration in the face of growing challenges in the news industry. "The public must be able to distinguish between authentic media and content generated by AI, which is critical for news organisations and democracy," he said.

The workshop also included a study from Media Cluster Norway’s Project Reynir, exploring how media consumers respond to detailed image provenance information.