Gina Chua, Executive Editor of Semafor and former leader in global newsrooms, shares her insights on AI's transformative role in journalism. She discusses innovative AI tools like Miso that enhance storytelling and multilingual engagement. Gina emphasizes the need for journalists to adapt by asking the right questions and crafting narratives uniquely human. Challenges in integrating AI products in newsrooms, from unstable models to workflow resistance, are also examined, highlighting a pivotal moment for journalism's future.
51:15
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
question_answer ANECDOTE
Semaphore's MISO Multilingual Tool
Semaphore built MISO, a multilingual search tool that translates search terms into multiple languages and summarizes foreign stories.
This helps reporters access diverse sources efficiently, though summaries require trust verification.
insights INSIGHT
Rethinking Journalistic Value with AI
News organizations should reconsider what unique value they provide in a world where machines can do much narration.
The focus shifts to asking the right questions and deeply understanding the audience.
insights INSIGHT
AI Can Serve Marginalized Communities
Current mass-audience news models underserve many communities due to scale constraints.
AI can help cover smaller, marginalized topics by enabling customized, scalable coverage.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
In this live episode, host Nikita Roy sits down with Gina Chua, Executive Editor of Semafor, recorded at an event at New York University hosted in collaboration with the AI networking group, Humans in the Loop. Gina brings a uniquely expansive lens to the AI conversation, grounded in her leadership across global newsrooms—from Reuters and The Wall Street Journal to the South China Morning Post. Now at Semafor, she continues to be a leading voice rethinking the information ecosystem for an AI-driven world.
In this wide-ranging and candid conversation, Gina explores how generative AI is reshaping the fundamental architecture of journalism—from editorial workflows and business models to the core definition of a story. She discusses her team’s experiments with building custom AI tools like Miso, a multilingual aggregation system powering Semafor’s Signals format.
Key topics include:
How Semafor is using AI for multilingual search, editorial summarization, and style guide enforcement built directly into Google Suite workflows using App Scripts and Claude.
The challenges of building durable AI products in newsrooms including unstable models, integration hurdles, and evolving use cases.
Rethinking the role of journalists in an AI world: where value lies in asking the right questions, building audience understanding, and creating narratives only humans can shape.
The importance of reframing journalism’s mission not as saving “journalists” or “journalism,” but as delivering information in the public interest.
Behind-the-scenes on JESS (Journalist Expert Safety Support), a chatbot Gina prototyped and co-developed to democratize access to field safety guidance for reporters worldwide.
Why the future of news depends on tight, authentic relationships with audiences and how startups like Semafor are designing for trust, voice, and community from the ground up.
The episode closes with reflections on Gina’s personal coding journey with AI including her work building an assistive tool for a friend with ALS.
Sign up for the Newsroom Robots newsletter for episode insights and updates from host Nikita Roy.
Newsroom Robots 