AI is here to stay, but how to use the tools — and whether to — has been key to conversations taking place in newsrooms across the country.
Francesco Marconi, a computational journalist, and the co-founder of AI company Applied XL, shared a practical look at what journalists need to know about AI tools and their applications within journalistic work. Marconi, formerly R&D Chief at The Wall Street Journal and AI Co-Lead at the Associated Press, will share best practices for using AI in the newsroom.
Key tips for using AI, compiled by NPCJI training director Bara Vaida:
- For journalists the tools can be useful for: summarizing research or transcripts, brainstorming ideas, assisting with revisions of content, and even helping with writing the first draft of a story.
- Experiment with several AI tools: ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude are all available for free.
- The AI tools rely on prompts, or cues. Journalists will need to learn how to write effective prompts to get best results.
- Effective prompts have clarity (specific directions such as: ‘please summarize x.y.z..’), context (such as: ‘this is a lecture or a research study’) and directs the organizational structure of what you want the response to look like: (such as: ‘provide 3 key points, or ‘give me three headlines for my story’.)
- It takes time to learn how to write effective prompts, so practice and play around with it. See this beginner’s handbook for journalists on how to write AI prompts.
- Remember that the AI systems often make mistakes (called ‘hallucinations’ in the AI industry)
- The AI tools are on the open Internet, so create an email that isn’t tied to your personal account and make sure you aren’t asking the AI to analyze private material or sensitive personal information.
Additional resources
- How to use ChatGPT and other generative AI tools in your newsrooms (Knight Center course)
Francesco Marconi is a computational journalist and co-founder of Applied XL. He was previously R&D Chief at The Wall Street Journal leading a team of data scientists and computational journalists developing data tools for the newsroom. Prior to WSJ he managed strategy at the Associated Press where he co-led content automation and artificial intelligence efforts. He is an affiliate researcher at MIT Media Lab and a Tow Fellow at Columbia University. Francesco’s book “Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism” was published by Columbia University Press in 2020. You can contact Francesco here with additional questions
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