WELCOME
Get your newsroom ready to incorporate technologies that include artificial intelligence to support and grow all aspects of your news operation.
AP walks you through how to build a technology strategy across newsgathering, production, distribution and business operations.
The course is based on findings from AP’s research with local U.S. newsrooms and is designed for local news journalists and managers at all levels.
This course includes:
The learning experience was offered as live sessions in April and May 2022. Some videos are not included here due to rights restrictions.
This program is made available by funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
AI Readiness: Helping local news journalists understand AI
Live Session
The AP Local AI team presents an overview of the role of artificial intelligence in journalism.
Convincing decision makers to invest in AI
Jeremy Gilbert, professor at Northwestern University, explains what it takes to convince newsroom decision makers to pursue projects that involve AI. Gilbert, who previously worked at The Washington Post, observes that some decision makers will have a hard time understanding the value of AI. Journalists should plan a narrative story that creates a compelling case for the decision maker to pursue AI. Gilbert says pitches need to be focused on well-defined needs, whether those needs originate as stated needs or implied needs.
Crafting a pitch for AI in your newsroom
Cynthia DuBose, managing editor for audience engagement at McClatchy, describes how to craft pitches to a leader. DuBose recommends starting with identifying gaps in your processes, and how automation can streamline or deliver additional content. Issues that must be addressed in a pitch include: potential time savings, project timing, audience impact and costs.
Taking the first step with simple process automations
Adriana Lacy, digital and audience engagement editor at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, demonstrates how to use IFTTT and Buffer to automate posting to various social media channels. Lacy, previously with the Los Angeles Times, walks through a process where new stories published by a newsroom via a RSS feed will automatically be sent to Twitter.
Newsgathering: Making it easier to gather facts
Live Session
A trio of experts provide an overview of automation and AI-based tools that help in the newsgathering process across all formats.
Getting a head start with transcribing interviews
Elise Kaplan, a reporter for the Albuquerque Journal, demonstrates how to use the AI-powered Otter to automate transcription of interviews, news conferences and other recordings. Kaplan demonstrates the features of Otter, including ingesting raw content for transcription, starting the transcription process, editing the automated transcript, and sharing the transcript with colleagues.
Generating automated alerts from government websites (simple)
Samantha Sunne, a freelance journalist, demonstrates how to use Google Alerts and Wachete to generate alerts from government websites. Sunne walks through how to configure Google Alerts for very specific changes, such as new PDFs, Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, when they’re posted by a government agency. Critically, Google Alerts only updates once a day, so it’s not useful for breaking news. That’s where Wachete comes in. A paid tier offers checks hourly or sooner. Wachete can detect changes within a document in situations where governments release data using the same file name repeatedly. Wachete offers more options for journalists comfortable working with HTML.
Generating automated alerts from government websites (advanced)
Samantha Sunne, a freelance journalist, demonstrates how to use DocumentCloud’s new add-ons feature to generate alerts from government websites. This method allows for a combined process that includes automated monitoring of a government website, detecting new updates, importing new documents into DocumentCloud, and sending alerts based on monitored keywords. This method benefits from DocumentCloud’s abilities to run optical character recognition (OCR) on documents.
Avoid information overload on social media with automated tools
Samantha Sunne, a freelance journalist, demonstrates how to use TweetDeck and NewsWhip Spike. On TweetDeck, Sunne shows how to use filters in columns to focus on specific subjects, dates and locations. In NewsWhip’s Spike, Sunne walks you through searching for posts related to a specific breaking news event. Alerts can be generated on both products.
Production: Putting the facts together into a news product
Live Session
These three experts provide an overview of automation and AI-based tools that help in the production process across all formats.
AI-generated stories can free up journalists’ time
Rich Scinto, data editor for Patch.com, demonstrates the features of Wordsmith by Automated Insights which automatically writes stories. Scinto explains that AI-powered writing requires a structured data set, which commonly appears as a spreadsheet. Patch uses Wordsmith to generate thousands of stories on COVID-19 data that are localized by county. Scinto shows in detail how he programs Wordsmith to fill in a story template using the data set. Scinto says Wordsmith has freed up time for journalists who would otherwise have to write repetitive COVID-19 data stories.
Distribution: Getting your news products to audiences
Live Session
Three experts provide an overview of automation and AI-based tools that help in the distribution process across all formats.
What Google Analytics 4 can do for your newsroom
Brad Gerick, a digital strategist at the American Press Institute, demonstrates the main features of Google Analytics 4, which all users will be required to transition to by July 2023. Gerick looks at the key features for newsrooms that have never used Google Analytics, and the features that current users will see in the new version. Gerick warns that Google Analytics should not be used for real-time decision making.
Using Chartbeat for real-time decision making
Julie Gill Moreno, executive producer for digital at KSAT-TV, demonstrates the main features of Chartbeat. Moreno notes that the station relies on Chartbeat for the pulse of the day while using Google Analytics for deep dives on historical data. Editors can use Chartbeat’s visualizations to make decisions about how to showcase stories on the website.
To automate or not to automate comment moderation?
Andrew Losowsky, head of community product at Vox Media, explains emerging best practices for audience comments on websites, along with providing an overview of the AI-powered Coral tool to moderate comments. Losowsky says any newsroom that intends to completely outsource comment moderation to AI should simply not allow comments at all. Coral pre-filters toxic comments, and offers feedback to commenters if they violate rules.
Business: Getting paid for your journalism
Live Session
Three experts provide an overview of automation and AI-based tools that help in business operations across all formats.
Chatbots for customer and member service
An overview of best practices for chatbots, along with a behind-the-scenes look at AP’s own customer service chatbot. Joe Germuska, executive director of Northwestern University’s Knight Lab, says chatbots can be built with no-code conversation flow diagramming tools all the way up to full-service consultancies. Tracey Rogers, manager for business and customer operations projects at AP, describes why AP settled on the Salesforce Einstein chatbot. Austin Cantrell, senior Salesforce administrator at AP, presents the user interface of the customer service chatbot, along with the flowchart-based programming interface. Cantrell says most of the chatbot was built without any coding.
Future State: What’s next in AI for journalism
Live Session
The AP Local AI team conclude the six-week series with some predictions for the future of artificial intelligence in journalism.
Reporting on AI
A panel of reporters who’ve covered the impact of AI in society describe the coverage opportunities in this space. Garance Burke, a global investigative journalist at AP, describes the real world impact of AI across multiple beats. Burke reported on a series called “Tracked” which examined how an AI-based technology landed a man in jail. Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi, reporters at ProPublica, describe their Pulitzer Prize winning reporting on AI in policing. Their series, “Targeted” for the Tampa Bay Times, examined how a local law enforcement agency used AI-generated information to harass certain people in the name of preventing crime. The three reporters explain how local newsrooms can begin to cover AI in their beats, along with recommending resources to help.
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