Local news is in trouble. AI might be able to help.

The U.S. has lost over a third of its newspapers since 2005, including 127 in the last year, and more than half of the nation’s counties now have one or no local news sources.

That’s according to a report released by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in October, highlighting the stark issues facing the 21st century news media. The research took on further urgency as the presidential election spurred debate about how Americans consume information and the sources they’ve come to rely on.

But advocates for local news are urging smaller outlets to adopt AI tools to help with both news gathering and business needs. Given the anxiety about whether the emerging tech is friend or foe, AI may seem an unlikely ally. It’s already starting to be integrated into larger newsrooms to help with tasks like transcribing and social media. Can it help boost local ones?

One organization leading the charge is the American Journalism Project (AJP), which recently helped raise funds to start a news nonprofit in Los Angeles, and assisted the Texas Tribune to launch hyperlocal newsrooms throughout Texas.

Of course, AI raises concerns for newsrooms as well. For instance, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft last year over the use of its content to train AI. And the potential damage to search traffic, a bedrock for the news business, has alarmed some publishers. But the American Journalism Project is steadfast that that’s all the more reason to learn how to use it responsibly.

“There’s certainly a latent fear of AI in newsrooms, but what we’re increasingly seeing and advocating for is that this is here whether we like it or not, and we have to learn it, adopt it and see what works,” Liam Andrew, technology lead for AJP’s Product and AI Studio, tells The Current.

Saving time, saving the news

As newsrooms become thinner, they’re unable to cover regular community events such as school board meetings, business openings and real-estate sales. That has implications for the community, argued Bill Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, in a column he wrote for Neiman Lab in 2022. “Citizens feel more estranged” from the agencies and officials in their communities, he wrote.

Grueskin offered a potential solution, though.

“If we can automate some of this commodity news, we can provide a lot more information — much of it useful, if not sexy — to people who need it,” he added.

That same year, an Associated Press report — based on surveys of 192 U.S.-based newsroom leaders — explored the top ways that newsrooms could utilize AI for news production, distribution and business. They included social media content creation, photo archives, personalization of newsletters and websites, data visuals, comment moderation, SEO, audience analytics, helping digital advertisers place and design ads, and adaptive paywalls to determine the best time and content to use a paywall.

“If we can find a way to implement AI tools, I could see us freeing up several hours of the various mundane tasks included in our day to day, which would allow our reporters and editors to focus on producing more and better stories for our communities,” Kyle Ocker, editor at the Ottumwa Courier, told the AP.

AJP’s Andrew reiterates the premise that AI can help newsrooms — on both the editorial and business sides — save time, whether it be putting together media kits or helping with newsgathering, such as analyzing public records.

“Streamlining operations at these organizations is so crucial,” he says, whether it be using AI to help draft grant applications or to analyze hourslong city hall meetings for anything newsworthy.

“Sometimes there are only 10 minutes in there that are important to a newsroom’s audience, so can AI help surface that?” he says.

Spotlight on a success story

Some digital newsrooms that AJP has worked with and that are using AI successfully include New York City-based The City, which used AI to help analyze the neighborhoods that it might have been under-covering; Sahan Journal, which utilized AI to help create a media kit for advertising clients; and Spotlight PA, which offered an AI-assisted chat to Pennsylvania voters for election-related questions.

“The goal was to experiment with AI to learn about potential applications in our newsroom, and we certainly achieved this goal,” says Christina Bruno, the digital growth strategist at Spotlight PA, of the AI-supported election assistant.

She notes that it provided insights into the biggest questions readers have about elections that could inform their reporting in the future.

“We prioritized elections because it is already an area where audiences are seeking information from Spotlight PA, and this tool in particular was a way to amplify some of the work we were already doing rather than replace anything our reporters do.”

Bruno does acknowledge that for all of AI’s benefits to newsrooms, there are legitimate concerns, such as questions around intellectual property violations and the potential spread of misinformation. But aside from the election tool, Spotlight PA is also interested in using AI to help review public records, and Bruno can attest to its support in helping to craft SEO headlines and more audience-building strategies.

“The tradeoffs will be different for different organizations, and I think both the concerns and benefits may change as AI continues to evolve,” she says.