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The Lenfest Institute for Journalism collaborates with OpenAI and Microsoft to fund artificial intelligence projects at five newspapers—Chicago Public Media, Newsday, The Minnesota Star Tribue, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times—for two years. The fellowship will be supported by $10 million in funding and credits, helping newsrooms explore AI’s potential in journalism.
This project aimed to train news publishers in AI-powered transcription services for public data analysis and audience engagement. Depending on their specific needs, different publishers will conduct different experiments with AI. For instance, Chicago Public Media will focus on AI for content summarisation and translation to expand its reach. At the same time, Newsday plans to create AI-based tools to aggregate and summarise public data for use by journalists and businesses alike.
Similarly, The Seattle Times plans to utilise AI for advertising sales analytics, and The Philadelphia Inquirer will use AI to build conversational search tools for its vast archives.
Each participating news media will work on its AI project and collaborate with the broader news industry to share lessons, case studies, and technological developments. This will ensure that other local newspapers replicate the insights gained in the project.
“The fellowship program is designed to promote the use of AI in creating a sustainable future for independent local journalism,” said Jim Friedlich, executive director and CEO of The Lenfest Institute.
The program’s projects were selected through an application process led by The Lenfest Institute with the help of media consultants FT Strategies and AI tools provider Nota.
Three more media organisations are due to receive the grant of $10 million later.
This development comes when news publishers and AI companies are at loggerheads. Recently, Perplexity, an AI startup backed by Jeff Bezos, was sued by Dow Jones and the New York Post while The New York Times sent a cease-and-desist letter.
Similarly, OpenAI was sued by NYT, eight newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and NOYB for copyright violations and inaccuracies.
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