Case Study: How Hearst Newspapers built an AI-powered, Slack-based Tool to Help With Digital Content Production


Published August 27, 2024

AI in the Newsroom is a series of case studies from the Online News Association (ONA) that highlight specific ways journalists are building and using AI tools.

Launched by Hearst Newspapers, Producer-P is a Slack-based tool leveraging OpenAI’s GPT-4 and fine-tuned GPT-3.5-Turbo models to assist journalists in creating optimized headlines, SEO titles, URLs, related links, and notification summaries across several newsrooms.

Opportunity

Local newsrooms like the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, and San Antonio Express-News face challenges in streamlining digital content production. They needed to cut down the time required for creating optimized digital content while ensuring ethical AI usage.

Solution

Producer-P addresses these challenges by leveraging advanced AI models. The tool is integrated into Slack rather than being embedded into the CMS, requiring users to critically assess and manually implement the bot’s suggestions. This design choice prevents overreliance on AI-generated content and promotes active human engagement.

Key features of Producer-P

  • AI-driven Content Optimization: Assists journalists in creating five example headlines, SEO titles, URLs, related links and notification summaries. Journalists can further interact with the AI-generated headlines to modify them according to their desired angle.
  • Human Engagement: By being embedded in Slack rather than the CMS, it ensures manual review and implementation of the suggestions.
  • Ethical AI Use: Ethical and responsible AI usage is a cornerstone of Producer-P’s implementation. Journalists who will use the tool undergo training that covers the both technical and ethical considerations of using AI in journalism, as well as broader issues related to large language models. The training focuses on maintaining human involvement, limiting text generation to summarizing or aggregating information, and ensuring transparency.

An example of Hearst Newspapers’ AI-powered tool assisting journalists with optimized content.

Outcomes and impact so far

Since its launch, Producer-P has been embraced by Hearst Newspapers journalists, handling more than 1,000 requests a month across the network. The tool has influenced more than tangible metrics, with over 200 journalists trained in responsible AI use.

The impact is particularly notable in hyperlocal newsrooms, where Producer-P serves as an audience producer or SEO editor, roles that are often unfilled in smaller teams. Larger newsrooms with dedicated staff in these areas also benefit from the additional support provided by Producer-P.

Producer-P has maintained a record of accuracy with no incidents of factual errors, alleviating initial concerns about AI reliability. This success has led to the development of more AI-powered internal products focused on translation, newsletter summarization and transcription, as well as public-facing experiences.

Lessons learned

  • Maintaining human supervision and engagement are crucial to ensure the quality and integrity of AI-generated content.
  • Training users in ethical AI use is essential for responsible journalism.
  • New tools can encourage a cultural shift. Viewing AI as a “copilot” can enrich reporting capabilities and open up new possibilities for innovation.

Go deeper

Listen to this episode of Newsroom Robots featuring Ryan Serpico to learn more about the Producer-P project and the entire development process.

This resource is part of the AI in the Newsroom series. Read other case studies you might have missed:

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Author
Nikita Roy
ICFJ Knight Fellow and Newsroom Robots Podcast Host