Newsroom Robots

Aimee Rinehart, the Senior Product Manager of AI Strategy for The Associated Press  joins Nikita Roy to discuss how AP is using AI and the tools being built as part of AP’s Local News AI Initiative. Aimee shares AP's current approach of learning and experimentation with generative AI through projects around translation, image identification and search. Before joining AP, Aimee served as the Deputy Director of First Draft's New York Bureau, where she helped journalists and newsrooms navigate the mis- and disinformation during the 2018 and 2020 U.S. election cycles. In 2018, she managed Comprova, a project to monitor and analyze misinformation and disinformation around the 2018 Brazilian elections. Aimee started working online in 1996 and was a digital originator at The New York Times, and returned to print briefly as an editor at the Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels.Tune in to hear how one of the largest news organizations is navigating the adoption of AI and automation technologies while also assisting local newsrooms. Thoughts or questions? You can reach us here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Briggs joins Nikita Roy to discuss the core components necessary for building an AI-ready newsroom culture. Mark also shares the findings of a recent survey on audience perceptions of using AI in news.Mark is the author of the widely-used book 'Journalism Next,' now in its fourth edition and used in colleges across the United States. He was a leadership and change management professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for six years. He will now teach a course on entrepreneurial journalism at the University of Washington in the fall. Mark has spent the past two decades championing digital transformation and innovation in the world of news.Tune in to hear Mark’s insights on how to prepare your newsroom for the AI revolution.Referenced in the episode: PoisedOasis AIThoughts or questions? You can reach us here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dalia Hashim joins Nikita Roy to unpack the nuances of incorporating AI into journalism. She provides critical questions to consider when engaging with AI vendors, elaborating on facets of clear communication, comprehension of tool limitations, and the importance of oversight. Dalia also delves into the ethical quandaries with AI use in newsrooms, particularly around potential job displacement. She offers insights on building an ethical AI strategy. Dalia also shares the future plans of Partnership on AI to help newsrooms.Dalia Hashim is the Program and Research Lead for AI and Media Integrity at Partnership on AI. She focuses on the intersection of AI and local news and works extensively on understanding how AI policies and interventions can minimize the harmful impact of AI in various industries. Before this role, Dalia made significant strides in AI policy development in the Ontario Government. As a founding member of their AI policy team, she helped write and pass Canada’s first digital law. Most recently, she served as a Senior Policy Advisor to Ontario’s Chief Digital and Data Officer, providing key insights on Ontario’s digital and data strategies.Referenced in the episode: Partnership on AI’s Responsible Practices for Synthetic MediaAI Tools for Local Newsrooms DatabaseThoughts or questions? You can reach us here.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Santiago Lyon joins Nikita Roy to discuss how Adobe's Content Authenticity Initiative is taking an active role in combating misinformation through digital content provenance. He discusses how Adobe addresses ethical issues and brings transparency to its AI-enabled products, like the new generative fill feature in Adobe Photoshop. He also touches upon the transformative impact of generative AI on the roles of creatives. Santiago Lyon is the Head of Advocacy and Education for the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative. He has more than 35 years of experience in photography as an award-winning photojournalist, photo editor, media executive, and educator. As a photographer for Reuters and The Associated Press, he won multiple photojournalism awards for his coverage of conflicts around the globe.  In 2003 he was a Nieman Fellow in journalism at Harvard University before being named Director of Photography at The Associated Press, a position he held until 2016. Under his direction, the AP won three Pulitzer Prizes for photography and multiple other major photojournalism awards worldwide. He was Chair of the Jury for the 2013 World Press Photo contest. Lyon serves on the boards of directors of the Eddie Adams Workshop and the VII Foundation. He also teaches regularly at the International Center of Photography in New York.Thoughts or questions? You can reach us here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Gregory Gondwe joins Nikita Roy to discuss the embedded stereotypes and biases in Generative AI models that put the Global South at a disadvantage. He also shares his findings on how journalists in sub-Saharan Africa leverage ChatGPT, with insights derived from his recently published journal article, "CHATGPT and the Global South: how are journalists in sub-Saharan Africa engaging with generative AI?" Dr. Gregory Gondwe is an Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies at California State University, San Bernardino,  and a Rebooting Social Media Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and SocietyHe studies emerging media trends and their implications on society, particularly in Africa. His current projects include how people in sub-Saharan Africa use social media — particularly how individuals orchestrate online communities, outsmart government censorship and surveillance, and navigate through biased social media algorithms. His other works include cross-national studies on mis/disinformation in sub-Saharan Africa related to gender, geolocation, age, and media literacy. Dr. Gondwe’s research works have appeared in various peer-reviewed journals, including Digital Journalism, International Journal of Communication, Journalism Practice, Journalism Studies, International Communication Gazette, and African Journalism Studies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ryan Restivo joins host Nikita Roy to discuss the product life cycle of building a generative AI product. As a Reynold’s Journalism Institute (RJI) fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism, Ryan developed YESEO. This free SEO slack tool uses Natural Language Processing and Generative AI to help newsrooms with SEO best practices. Since its launch in March, over 160 newsrooms have adopted the tool. Besides his work on YESEO, Ryan holds the Director of Product position at Newsday. He has more than a decade of industry experience in digital media.In this episode, we hear about Ryan’s journey building the YESEO app and  explore the unique challenges and opportunities of building generative AI toolsThoughts or questions? You can reach us here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jay Allred joins host Nikita Roy to share how his newsroom uses artificial intelligence to automatically generate sports content by converting data into news articles. Jay Allred is the CEO of Source Media Properties, a nationally recognized local news organization serving nearly half a million readers in Ohio in the United States. The Source newsrooms have become known for their tightly focused local coverage, entrepreneurial culture, and national leadership in audience engagement, revenue generation, and solutions journalism.Jay is also the co-founder of Lede AI, an artificial intelligence startup developed inside Source Media’s newsroom. Lede AI builds reliable, easy-to-use automation tools for newsrooms informed by the needs of readers, journalists, and communities. Jay serves as a board member of LION Publishers and was a 2022 Sulzberger Fellow at the Columbia Journalism School, where his project focused on the development of easy-to-use SAAS tools for local newsrooms around the globe. On today’s episode, Jay highlights his team’s journey building Lede AI, how his newsroom is carefully experimenting with generative AI, and discusses the future of the local news landscape.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Cohn, the co-founder of Subtext joins host Nikita Roy in this episode to discuss the recent doomsday buzz surrounding AI, copyright challenges and how generative AI can change the way news publishers interact with their audiences. Over the past two decades David has worked at the intersection of technology and journalism, with a focus on new products, business models, audience growth, customer experience and incubating new companies. He helped pioneer crowdfunding at Spot.Us, explored mobile first news at Circa and led the charge into social video at AJ+. Today he is a co-founder of Subtext, a platform that lets news organizations, reporters and content creators text with their audience to increase audience engagement, develop new revenue or increase subscriber retention.Tune in to hear David’s perspective on the potential of AI to reshape the relationship between news publishers and their audience.  Thoughts or questions? You can reach us here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a workshop held by Newsroom Robots’ host Nikita Roy at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY for the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program. Focusing on the practical applications of generative AI tools, she explores how these advanced technologies can empower news entrepreneurs to streamline their workflows and shares numerous use cases for their implementation in the newsroom.Mentioned in this episode: The AI generated video produced for the workshopHow generative AI was used to create the Newsroom Robots podcast cover artUse case: Having ChatGPT act as a salesperson for a  hyperlocal newsroomAI tools discussed:ChatGPT: Text generation tool by OpenAI.Writer: Another text generation tool geared towards businesses  with a focus on privacy and a competitor to ChatGPTLumen5: Converts text to video.Eleven Labs: Text to speech voice generator.MidJourney: AI image generator.Poe MidJourney Prompt Bot: AI chatbot app to help you create MidJourney promptsDALL-E: Generates images from text powered by OpenAI.Bing Image Creator: Bing’s AI image generator based on text powered by OpenAIZapier: No-code automation tool that connects apps to create automated workflows.Thoughts or questions? You can reach us here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today’s episode, Ryan Serpico joins host Nikita Roy to discuss how he built the first generative AI tool that is helping power local newsrooms across Hearst Newspapers. Ryan is Hearst Newspapers first AI and Automation Engineer, where he takes advantage of the latest developments in generative AI to empower journalists in Hearst Newspapers' local newsrooms across the country. Prior to moving into this role, he spent three years at the San Antonio Express-News, first as a digital producer and then as a graphics reporter. He graduated from the University of Florida in 2018 with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 2018. You can follow him on mastodon (https://mastodon.social/@ryan_serpico) and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ryan_serpico).We also discuss Ryan’s transition from the editorial side of the newsroom to the technical side, how he views privacy concerns regarding generative AI and his advice for journalists looking to get more technical with AI. Thoughts or questions? You can reach us here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.