Well hello, reporters! I don’t usually cover a whole topic, but AI has been so in the zeitgeist recently that I felt like I had a burden to address it. Basically, if you’re wondering:
I don’t use any AI tools right now, and I’m not planning to in any real kind of way in the near future. (I did hear about reporters using AI to write public records requests, which is certainly intriguing…)
But they are so new and flashy that I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to try them. That’s way I’m sharing PAI’s AI Tools for Local Newsrooms Database.
AI tools aren’t necessarily trustworthy themselves (yet), but PAI is (they’re an AI nonprofit that partners with some journalism orgs I know), so I feel ok about recommending it.
ChatGPT is in the news for generating text based off a prompt, but there are other newsworthy options, like audience engagement and audio transcription. Basically, if you want to get your hands dirty, I would recommend searching the db for a tool you might use, and give it a whirl. And hope it doesn’t end up on a list of fads five years from now. To the future!