May 17, 2023
Experts say journalists can use tools like ChatGPT in their reporting to help small newsrooms improve their operations.
Posted in Teacher Voices
From the classroom to the arts and every industry in between, generative AI is about how “the way we do things” will forever change, and what humans will need to do to adapt. has sparked countless conversations.
Joe Amditis, assistant director of products and events at the Center for Cooperative Media, is particularly interested in how newsrooms—especially smaller operations with increasingly tight budgets—can make the most of AI. I have. Here, he shares tools and tips for optimizing AI tools such as ChatGPT, ethical concerns related to AI, and predictions about the future of AI with his local newsroom.
What sparked your interest in how AI could be used for local news?
I am interested in how local newsrooms, especially those with less than five full-time staff, can improve their operations and workflows to become more efficient and effective, even on a limited budget. I have always been interested in what it can do.
I hope that small newsrooms will continue that trend, automating some of the tedious and monotonous tasks newsrooms have to tackle every day, and saving the time and energy they save to serve their communities. We see this as an opportunity to find ways to focus more on And create quality journalism.
What are some of the ways local broadcast, digital and even print news publications can take advantage of AI?
Generative AI can be used in your local newsroom in a number of ways, including:
- Crawl and scrape the web for news articles. With AI, you can automatically search and collect news articles from various sources such as websites, social media, and even live video feeds. This helps news outlets stay up to date with breaking news and identify stories that are relevant to their audience.
- Automate the creation of news articles. AI can be used to automate the process of creating news articles, from gathering information to generating article text. This allows news organizations to produce more content with fewer people.
- Personalize news content for individual readers. AI can be used to personalize news content to individual readers based on their interests and preferences. This helps news outlets keep their readers engaged and increase the likelihood that they will click to read the presented article.
- News stories targeted at a specific audience. AI can be used to target news stories to specific audiences based on demographics, location, and other factors. This allows news outlets to reach a wider audience with their content.
- Measure the impact of news articles. AI can be used to measure the impact of news stories, such as how many people read the news, how long they read it, and whether they share it on social media. This information helps news outlets understand the types of stories that resonate with their audiences and modify their content accordingly.
- Summarize or repackage existing content for different audiences and platforms. AI can be used to create short versions of articles for social media and other platforms where space is limited. Generate new headlines and summaries for articles to make them more engaging or relevant to different audiences. Translate articles into different languages. Create an audio or video version of your article. and/or generate new content based on existing articles such as lists, quizzes, infographics, etc.
Do you have any advice for aspiring, early-career, or seasoned journalists as to why they should consider incorporating AI into their work?
Get started now. Even if you’re just experimenting with different tools, by yesterday you’ve become familiar with the basic processes and tactics around those tools. It’s been less than six months since they started (in a big way) and things are constantly changing and evolving. Luckily, the interface is as easy as having a conversation. The bad news is that you have no idea what this space will look like in the next six months. So if you don’t start paying attention as soon as possible, you and your company could be left behind.
What ethical issues and other concerns do you see emerging as more news organizations embrace AI?
One of my biggest concerns is the inevitability of these technologies being adopted by right-wingers, fascists, and bullies. These tools have the potential to make targeted harassment, fraud and fraud more efficient and personal on a scale never before possible. As things continue to change so rapidly, we must be prepared to protect the most vulnerable.
Could these strategies be scaled up and used by larger media companies? How?
These strategies are especially useful for large media companies willing to dedicate resources to projects such as fine-tuning models for archiving and community data, and building custom chatbots to increase and improve engagement with community members. , absolutely can be scaled up and used. , such as creating specific workflows and processes to streamline the production (and promotion) of existing content.
- Web crawling and scraping. Collect news articles from various sources at scale using AI.
- Automated news production. Implement AI to streamline content creation, including writing, fact-checking, and data analysis.
- personalized content. Leverage AI algorithms to deliver personalized news based on individual user preferences and behavior.
- Target audience. Leverage AI to segment news articles and target specific demographics and segments of users.
- impact measurement. Analyze user data with AI to measure the impact of news articles and optimize your content strategy.
- Content summarization and repackaging. Leverage AI for tasks such as article summarization, content translation, and tailoring for different platforms and audiences.
Which newspaper companies are successfully leveraging AI?
ARLnow’s Scott Brodbeck has already found an interesting and useful way to incorporate the use of generative AI to help create newsletters for publications. For more information on ARLnow’s efforts, check out this recent article from his Nieman Lab. I am also featured in this article.
How has the Center for Cooperative Media experimented with AI?
We use AI to summarize content and activity (blog posts, news articles, events, etc.) to make it easier to promote and share. This includes alternative headlines, potential social posts, and suggestions for newsletter blurbs. We have also used it to generate personalized emails, documents and other content using existing data about relevant recipients and partners.
What do you foresee for the future of local news in relation to the impact of AI?
In the future, I believe there will be a lot less reliance on so-called “prompt engineering”, especially as this technology is standardized and embedded in various SaaS products and services. All the big tech companies are already vying to get into the AI space, and I think there will eventually be more of a shift from rapid engineering per se to “managing agile” or AI operations management.
In my Niemann Institute Predictions for 2023, I wrote:
The ability to rapidly generate documents, instructions, guides, and various elements of internal infrastructure has the potential to save independent and hyperlocal news publishers an incredible amount of time and effort.
Instantly generate summaries of public meetings and documents, create tweets and social posts from news articles, script news broadcasts, and even suggest different headline variations with the click of a button. All with the click of a button, this will be a game-changer for already existing news outlets. People and resources are under pressure. The same goes for billing, public records requests, and even basic outreach emails.
That way, you can (and should) spend more time writing reports and interacting with community members. It can also help make local news content more accessible to people with disabilities, English as a second language, and people who might not normally encounter local news articles in their current format. There is a nature.
I also wrote about the greater potential of this technology as it matures to the point where fine-tuning a model becomes as easy as uploading a set of files or documents to the web.
For more information about the Center for Cooperative Media, visit centerforcooperativemedia.org. To contact the Media Relations team, please visit montclair.edu/newscenter/contact-media-relations.
