Chicago Public Media, The Minnesota Star Tribune, Newsday (Long Island, New York), The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times will receive grants and corporate credits for experiments with generative AI.
PHILADELPHIA — Oct. 22, 2024 — The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a leader in developing solutions for the next era of local news, announced on Tuesday that it will explore ways for newsrooms to deliver humanized news and We announced a major new collaboration with OpenAI and Microsoft Corp. to help with implementation. Intelligence helps drive business sustainability and innovation in local journalism through the Lenfest Institute AI Collaboration and Fellowship Program.
In the first round of funding, Chicago Public Media, Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.), Minnesota Star Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Seattle Times each funded projects focused on: will receive a grant to hire a two-year AI fellow to promote the His main focus is on improving business sustainability and implementing AI technology within organizations. The fellowship will also provide credits in OpenAI and Microsoft Azure to help these publications experiment and develop tools that support local news. As part of this program, news organizations will collaborate with each other and the broader news industry to develop the learning content, product development, case studies and techniques needed to replicate their work in other newsrooms. Share information. A second round of grants will be awarded to three additional organizations.
“The Lenfest Institute’s vision for the future of the Lenfest Institute continues to grow,” said Jim Friedrich, executive director and CEO of The Lenfest Institute. “Through these fellowships, and by sharing our findings with the broader news industry, we are helping local newsrooms explore AI business solutions that strengthen their future prospects while maintaining the highest ethical standards. The Lenfest Institute and OpenAI are leading a fellowship program aimed at accelerating the use of AI to create a sustainable future for independent local journalism. We welcome Microsoft’s efforts to expand its scope and resources.”
The first batch of AI Collaborative and Fellows members will focus on using AI to analyze public data, leverage news and visual archives, build audience engagement, and create new AI-based news tools and products. work on a project. And so on. The projects were selected through an application process led by The Lenfest Institute, with support from global media consultancy FT Strategies and Nota, a provider of AI tools for journalism.
“While there is no substitute for the core role of reporters, we believe that AI technology can help research, investigate, distribute, and monetize important journalism. “We are deeply invested in supporting small, independent publishers through our efforts to ensure they have access to the same cutting-edge tools and opportunities as larger organizations.” said Tom Rubin, division director. , OpenAI. “Local news is a particularly vulnerable area of journalism, and we believe AI can help it thrive.”
The selected projects are:
Chicago Public Media, publisher of The Chicago Sun-Times and public radio station WBEZ, will use AI for transcription, summarization, and translation to expand content offerings and reach new audiences. We will focus on The Minnesota Star Tribune will experiment with AI summarization, analysis and content discovery for both journalists and readers. Newsday builds AI public data summarization and aggregation tools as a marketing service offering for its newsrooms, readers, and businesses. The Philadelphia Inquirer uses an AI platform to build a conversational search interface for its archives. It also plans to use AI to monitor and analyze media produced by local governments and government agencies. The Seattle Times plans to use its AI platform to help market advertising, support sales training and other sales analytics before rolling out the learnings to other business functions and departments.
“We need local journalism to inform and educate citizens, expose wrongdoing, and engage citizens. We are partnering with the Lenfest AI Fellowship to advance AI innovation and support reporting. We look forward to helping institutions expand their coverage, find new revenue streams, and develop new products to ultimately build a more sustainable future,” said Teresa, Corporate Vice President of Technology.・Hutson says. Fundamental Rights at Microsoft. “We hope these news organizations will become lighthouses for the industry and provide examples of how AI can build a better future for the news business.”
To support the new Lenfest Institute AI Collaboration and Fellowships program and resources, OpenAI and Microsoft will each provide $2.5 million in direct funding and $2.5 million in software and enterprise credits, for a total of up to $10 million. This two-year pilot program is in partnership with the Lenfest Institute’s Local Independent News Coalition (LINC), a group of eight of the nation’s largest independent metropolitan news organizations.
LINC is one of several communities of practice supported by and led by the Lenfest Institute and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. LINC includes The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Public Media (WBEZ and The Chicago Sun Times), The Dallas Morning News, Newsday (Long Island, New York), The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Seattle Times, The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Tampa Contains. Bay Times.
Click here to learn more about LINC. Sign up to receive updates on Lenfest AI Fellows’ experiments and lessons learned through The Lenfest Institute Solution Set newsletter.
About Lenfest Journalism Institute
The Lenfest Journalism Institute is creating solutions for the next era of local news by investing in sustainable business models at the intersection of local journalism and community in Philadelphia and across the country.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and implementation company. Its mission is to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all humanity.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) creates AI-powered platforms and tools to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers. With a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, the technology company is committed to making AI widely available and doing so responsibly. I’m here.
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