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In an industry where shrinking staffs meet growing demands, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as an unlikely ally for local newsrooms. While some view AI with skepticism, imagining it as a threat to traditional journalism, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Rather than replacing people, artificial intelligence is a tool designed to amplify the work of journalists, streamline workflows, and empower creativity — all while increasing revenue and audience engagement. Let’s look at how this technology can bring a breath of fresh air into newsrooms struggling to remain relevant and profitable.
Imagine being able to create more content than ever before and distribute it seamlessly across television, websites, and social media — all without overwhelming your team. With AI’s help, that vision is a reality. Newsrooms are already leveraging AI to generate extra stories, recaps, and summaries of local events. Even the most mundane, time-consuming tasks can be automated, lifting the burden off staff and allowing them to focus on what truly matters: crafting impactful stories that engage, inform, and grow audiences.
AI tools today are remarkably adaptable and capable of producing content that aligns with a newsroom’s standards for accuracy, fairness, and quality. Whether the tone needs to be serious or lighthearted, AI can be trained to match the style and voice of your station. For instance, here’s a playful AI-generated excerpt based on a Costco earnings report using our technology:
“Let’s face it: Costco isn’t just a store; it’s a lifestyle. It’s where you go to buy a 30-pack of toilet paper a rotisserie chicken, and somehow end up with a kayak. It’s like the Hotel California of retail — you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Such a humorous take is just one example of AI’s versatility. It can be serious, light, or anything in between, depending on the story’s needs and your audience’s expectations. After working for media outlets like Scripps, NBC, Fox, Yahoo, and now an AI tech firm, I’m convinced that AI will usher in a golden age of content creation in journalism, defying the narrative of decline that has haunted our industry for years. The technology works. Our AI creates hundreds of articles for our clients to post daily on their websites.
How to Bring Artificial Intelligence to Your Team Today
The key to a successful artificial intelligence user interface (UI) is simplicity. The ideal AI UI should allow anyone on your staff to use it with minimal training. Design the UI with designated content pipelines and appropriate prompts operating in the background. When negotiating deals with AI firms, remember that the prompts are crucial to success. Prompts control everything within an AI pipeline: accuracy, source validation, copyright protection, style, and automated content output. Prompts should be clear and straightforward instructions that create the guardrails on AI.
Various firms offer AI products that integrate with your existing newsroom infrastructure. Ask their software engineers and prompt engineers to tailor the prompts in your pipelines to your market and station and ownership standards. Your staff does not need to know how to code or prompt, but they must use the AI portal or UI, so you need to keep it simple.
Lightening the Load on Journalists
Today’s news teams face intense workloads with fewer resources than ever. With more stations replacing syndicated content with local programming, producers, reporters, and digital teams are increasingly asked to do more with less. AI can help fill the gaps, taking on repetitive and administrative tasks so journalists can focus on creative, high-impact stories that attract audiences.
Here’s a typical day in a newsroom: Reporters spend hours interviewing sources, gathering documents, researching, and writing scripts for newscasts that often start at 4 p.m. and run through the evening. Many stations now produce 3 p.m. newscasts, while others air news until 8 p.m. with only a two-hour gap until their “late” news programs. After the last live shot, there’s still a web article to draft and video clips to post on social media. Exhausted and overextended, many journalists find themselves doing triple duty in the name of keeping up. AI can relieve much of this burden, giving journalists their time back for more meaningful work – or an eight-hour shift instead of 10 or 12.
Here’s how AI can make a tangible difference in your newsroom right now. Reporters can input interviews, notes, press releases, documents, and other materials into the AI platform, which then accesses the station’s media library and licensed sources like AP and Reuters. Within minutes, AI synthesizes all the material, producing scripts for TV, long-form articles for the website, and short clips ready for social media — all consistent with journalistic principals and standards and tailored for your audience. One team member can review the AI-generated output before it’s posted or used in a newscast.
This newfound efficiency frees up producers to dedicate more time to crafting their rundowns, writers to verify breaking news and develop enterprise content, and the digital team to chase trending topics. Reporters, unchained from their desks, can continue gathering news in the field. Meanwhile, your newsroom’s content multiplies, reaching audiences across various platforms without sacrificing quality, relevance, or timeliness.
AI is an enhancer, not a replacer. It allows news teams to push past routine constraints, reach new audiences, and reinvigorate the passion that brought them to journalism in the first place. Media owners and newsroom leaders should recognize the opportunities AI presents as a powerful resource in a rapidly changing industry. In embracing AI, we empower our journalists to do more of what they love — telling stories that matter.
Adam Shapiro is the Managing Editor for Project Pluto, Inc. where he leads a team of reporters and prompt engineers using AI technology daily to deliver accurate original content on a fully automated LLM-powered news platform startup. Prior to entering the AI arena, Adam spent 11 years with Fox Business as an Anchor and Producer. He has also served as an Anchor and Reporter for NBC New York, a Writing Director for Yahoo Finance, and Assistant News Director for WGRZ in Buffalo.
