 Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from The Voice of America. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. Coming up on the program, Jill Robbins and Dan Friedel have a story on people in Japan buying fish caught in water near the Fukushima nuclear plant. Brian Lin has this week's Technology Report on how news organizations are using social media to cover war. Later, Jill and Andrew Smith present the lesson of the day, but first, people from all over Japan are purchasing fish caught in the waters near the Fukushima nuclear power plant. In August, the power plant started releasing treated and diluted radioactive water from holding tanks into the ocean. The power complex had suffered some equipment meltdowns after huge waves flooded the area in 2011 following an earthquake. The water release is part of the Tokyo Electric Power Company plan to shut the plant. The Japanese government says the water is safe and it will be continually observed. However, some nations that once purchased a large amount of Japanese seafood are no longer doing so. China has banned seafood from Japan. The regions of Hong Kong and Macau followed along. Russia also announced restrictions on Japanese seafood in mid-October. In South Korea, many people are concerned that the radioactive water will hurt fish close to home. Many people are no longer buying fish in South Korean markets. But people in Japan are trying to support the fishing industry by buying fish and seafood. At a fish store near the Onahama Port in Fukushima, one seller said he was half surprised, half relieved. Business owner Kazuto Harada had a tank of live lobsters captured in local waters for sale. He said he has not heard any concerns about the water release. Fukushima fish sellers are getting orders from all over Japan. People ask for fish called jabanmono, which means fish from Fukushima and nearby Ibaraki. The buyers like flounder and green eye. Almost all the fish at the market is sold by the afternoon. The water release will continue for many years. Futoshi Kinoshita is the executive of Furuson, which owns the Sakana Baka Group of seafood stores. He said usual testing of fishing waters is important, but he said it is more important that people gain trust in the seafood as they watch friends and family eat the fish. I hope the circle of confidence will expand, Kinoshita said. The International Atomic Energy Agency approved the Japanese plan to release the water. The group said the water release is going well so far, and said the plan will have very little effect on fish and the environment. The latest water release took place last week. So far, fish prices have remained firm or even gone up a small amount. However, one fishery's official remains watchful. Katsuya Goto said any mistake could be very damaging to the public's trust that the fish is safe. The government and TEPCO have begun this despite local fisher's opposition. So we must watch and make sure they do it right, he said. To support the Fukushima seafood business, the Tokyo government launched a campaign in October called Eat and Cheer. It runs through the end of the year. It targets customers interested in high priced seafood such as lobster. Then in 2024, a group of well-known kaiseki chefs in the city of Kyoto will start menus that use fish from Fukushima. Yoshinori Tanaka is one of the chefs. His restaurant in Kyoto is called Torione. He said fish from local waters are a necessity for Japanese food. He urged the government to continue worrying about water safety. He said seeing people enjoy the Fukushima fish on their menus can also help ease safety concerns that some people have. So far, people in the seafood business are happy with all the support. Experts, however, warn that such programs will not last forever. They suggest long-term programs to keep the fishing businesses going and efforts to avoid any accidents with the water release. Today, there are many fewer fishermen in the Fukushima area and they bring in fewer fish than before the nuclear disaster in 2011. And with the recent interest in fish from Fukushima, some fish sellers are not able to meet demand. Hiro Haruhaga is the manager of Ichiyoshi, a fish store in Onahama. He said the supply of Fukushima fish is still limited. I wish I could sell more local fish, he said. I'm Dan Friedel. And I'm Jill Robbins. News companies are increasingly using video and images from social media to report on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. This has led some media organizations to expand their efforts to identify faults or misleading information. Reporters covering the war in Gaza are limited by government restrictions on how they can document the conflict. But they can use a flood of video and pictures published online. Examining this material, however, can be difficult and take a lot of time. In addition, searching through a lot of graphic war images can cause emotional harm for the people looking at it. So far coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas has included live broadcasts and dash cam video that appeared on social media. News content has also been captured by satellite equipment and security cameras placed around Israel and Gaza. Using this kind of content in news shows has become very common for major media companies, said Katie Poglas. She is a London-based investigator for CNN. Some news organizations have even created special departments to investigate whether images or videos are real or not. Last week CBS News announced the launch of CBS News Confirmed. This team aims to use data and technology to study online evidence in an effort to confirm true facts. Earlier this year BBC Verify was established to serve the same purpose. Such news-gathering methods were not available during media coverage of some wars in the past. This meant the public usually only saw reports showing the aftermath of military battles. But in today's world millions of people are carrying phones everywhere that can capture and quickly publish images and video online. Wendy McMahon is president of CBS News and stations. She told the Associated Press that many people watching news broadcasts today expect to be part of a shared viewing experience. This way they can feel like they are learning what is going on right along with the reporters and news presenters, McMahon said. In order to create this kind of experience news reporters and producers have to search through a huge online supply of image and video content. The content comes from services like X, formerly Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Telegram, and Facebook. The degree to which social media has been used is very sophisticated, said Rona Tarant. She helps lead the online investigative website story-full. There's so much information, there's so much content, Tarant told the AP. With so much material available news organizations must also weigh their duty to inform and present a realistic picture against concerns that graphic and violent images could harm viewers. It has also become increasingly easy for people or organizations to create false images and video using artificial intelligence, AI methods. Reuters news agency uncovered several images published online that turned out to be false or fake. Some of the images appeared to show support for the Palestinians while others expressed support for Israel. Another case of confirmed misinformation involved a video of model Bela Hadid who has ancestral ties to Palestine. The video seemed to show Hadid denouncing the Hamas attack in Israel that started the latest conflict. But the video was fake. Someone used AI methods to change a video of Hadid accepting an award for her activism to raise awareness about Lyme disease. The new video appeared to show Hadid condemning Hamas' attack because it was changed to make it seem like different words were coming out of her mouth. Videos changed in this way to present misinformation are known as deep fakes. In another fake video US President Joe Biden seemed to claim his administration was planning on sending American troops to assist Israel in its war against Hamas. A lot of the fake images and videos come from past conflicts but are presented as new happenings. Sometimes even images from video games are published in an effort to trick users but experts can usually identify those. McMahon from CBS said the Israel Hamas war has in many ways confirmed a big fear among news executives that news organizations would see an influx of deep fakes and misinformation at a scale that was never seen before. I'm Brian Lin. Brian Lin joins me now to talk more about his technology report. Thanks for being here Brian. Of course Dan thanks for having me. This week's report looked at how some news organizations are using new methods to report on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. What can you tell us about these methods and why media companies see them as necessary? So what some news managers are saying is they have chosen to use images and video in their reports that come from public sources mainly from social media. This kind of material can improve their coverage of the war but it can also turn out to be false or misleading. So news organizations are investing in new resources to search out and examine such images and videos in order to be sure they are real and to use some of this material to provide a more complete picture of what is happening. We have heard a lot in recent years about how good AI tools are becoming and also we've been warned that they could be used to spread false information. Have such tools been a major factor in media coverage of the Gaza war? Yes, so there have been a few cases of AI tools creating false videos that were widely published online during the conflict but several experts noted that the influence of AI has been pretty limited so far. There have been many more examples of people or groups simply using images or video from past conflicts and presenting them as new rather than using false content created completely by AI. I see. Thanks again for joining me, Brian. You're welcome, Dan. Thank you. VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children. It is called Let's Learn English with Anna. The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations. For more information, visit our website LearningEnglish.boanews.com My name is Anna Matteo. My name is Andrew Smith. And my name is Jill Robbins. You're listening to The Lesson of the Day on the Learning English podcast. Welcome to the part of the show where we help you do more with our series Let's Learn English. This series shows Anna Matteo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. In Lesson 35 of the series, Anna and her roommate, Marcia, are having some friends over for dinner. Let's listen. Hi there. Washington, D.C. has many fun places to eat. But sometimes it's more fun to cook. In fact, tonight Marcia and I are cooking for friends. Well, she is cooking. I am doing the shopping. It's Marcia. Hi, Marcia. Hi, Anna. Do you have the shopping list? Yes, I told you I have the shopping list. Can you hear it? Okay, good. I hear the list. Anna, please buy all the ingredients on the list. Yes, Marcia, I will. And do not spend too much time shopping. No, Marcia, I won't. See you later. It's always a good idea to bring a shopping list to the store. They say if you stick to your list, you will save money because you won't just buy things that look good. Oh, do you mean impulse buying? I know. When I go to the store, they always have the cookies and cupcakes right at the front. They're the first thing you see when you walk in and they look so tasty. But if they're not on your list, just pass them by. Impulse buying, buying something without thinking about it too much can be hard on your food budget. Anyway, Anna has her list. Let's find out if she was able to get everything they need to make dinner for their friends. Hi, Anna. What took you so long? Our guests will be here soon. Don't worry, Marcia. I bought everything on the list. Let me see. You bought a bunch of bananas, a box of pancake mix, a bag of coffee. Anna, this is all wrong. What do you mean wrong? I bought a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. No wait. Two loaves of bread. Anna, these are the wrong ingredients. These ingredients are all on the list. I took this list from the counter. Anna, this is the shopping list for breakfast. I said take the shopping list on the refrigerator for dinner. Marcia, there was no shopping list on the refrigerator for dinner. Oh no! Uh oh. I can tell this will be an interesting dinner. Did you notice all the partitive nouns in that part, Jill? I did. I think we should explain. We use partitive nouns to talk about a quantity of something. Together with another noun, they tell us how much of it there is. So Marcia said, You bought a bunch of bananas, a box of pancake mix, a bag of coffee. Anna, this is all wrong. So the partitive structures there are a bunch of bananas. Bunch is the partitive noun. A box of pancake mix. There the partitive is box. And a bag of coffee. Bag is the partitive noun. You could also call these measure words since we are measuring the amount we have. Let's see if our listeners now can pick up some more of these words in what Anna says. What do you mean wrong? I bought a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. No wait, two loaves of bread. Did you get them? They are jar and loaf. One more thing I noticed, Jill, is the pronunciation of the word of in these structures. It seems to be reduced. I think it is. We might just use the reduced vowel, our old friend schwa, instead of clearly saying the word of. Right. So I could say a loaf of bread. And you hear that very quickly, just the sound, a loaf of bread. I wonder what Marcia is going to do with these foods. Peanut butter sandwiches for dinner? Let's listen. What are we going to do? When do our guests arrive? They arrive in 30 minutes. I can fix this. Do you trust me? Do I have to? Yes. So it was a mix up with the lists. Andrew, I think we're going to have to skip ahead to lesson 36 to find out what Anna makes. Sounds like a good idea to me. Anna seems like a very creative person. I think she can improvise. As a musician, you know to improvise means to play something without a plan. Right? Without music. But we use improvise in other situations, like when you make or do something using whatever you have. You don't plan it in advance. You just do it because you need to do something. That's right. You do it on the spot, we say, without planning ahead of time. So let's see if Anna improvises with her bag of breakfast foods. What are you cooking? I made my favorite recipe. Peanut butter, banana pancakes. You made breakfast. Yes, I call it. Let's eat breakfast for dinner, dinner. Hey, this tastes good. You made work. Of course. I'm Jill Robbins and you're listening to the lesson of the day on the Learning English podcast. We've been talking about lessons 35 and 36 of Let's Learn English. A 52 lesson course you can study for free on our website, learningenglish.voanews.com. In lesson 35, Anna made a mistake. She took the wrong shopping list to the store and bought breakfast food instead of food for a dinner party. But it all worked out fine in the end. That reminds me of a lesson I often teach my students. Make the most of your mistakes. That's so true, Andrew. You know, I've studied a lot of languages and I always learn more when I try something using what I've learned and I make a mistake. When I hear that what I said was wrong, it sinks in and I remember not to say it that way again. So in lesson 36, we see that Anna embraces her mistake and makes a delicious dinner for her friends. Now, here's something you can do. Think of a language mistake you made when you were learning English. How did the mistake help you? Did it help you remember the correct word or structure? Tell us about it at learningenglish.voanews.com. We do like to hear your comments and what you think of the lesson of the day on the Learning English podcast. Leave a comment on our YouTube channel where you can find this podcast in our videos. Remember that you can find us on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for listening to the lesson of the day on the Learning English podcast. I'm Andrew Smith. And I'm Dr. Jill. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak.