Chicago Public Media, The Minnesota Star
Tribune, Newsday (Long Island, New
York), The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times will receive grant funding and
enterprise credits for experimentation with generative AI
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 22,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lenfest Institute for
Journalism, a leader in developing solutions for the next era of
local news, on Tuesday announced a major new collaboration with
OpenAI and Microsoft Corp. to help newsrooms explore and implement
ways in which artificial intelligence can help drive business
sustainability and innovation in local journalism through the
Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship
program.
In the initial round of funding, Chicago Public Media, Newsday
(Long Island, NY), The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia
Inquirer, and The Seattle Times will
each receive a grant to hire a two-year AI fellow to pursue
projects that focus largely on improving business sustainability
and implementing AI technologies within their organizations. The
fellowship will also provide OpenAI and Microsoft Azure credits to
help these publications experiment and develop tools to assist with
local news. As part of the program, the news organizations will
work collaboratively with each other and the broader news industry
to share learnings, product developments, case studies and
technical information needed to help replicate their work in other
newsrooms. An additional three organizations will be awarded
fellows in a second round of grants.
"We are pleased to be working with both OpenAI and Microsoft on
this important initiative to support local news," said Jim Friedlich, executive director and CEO of The
Lenfest Institute. "Through these fellowships — and by sharing
results with the broader news industry — we will help empower local
newsrooms to explore, implement and advocate for AI business
solutions that uphold the highest ethical standards while
strengthening their future prospects. The Lenfest Institute and
OpenAI incubated the fellowship program, which is designed to
promote the use of AI in creating a sustainable future for
independent local journalism, and we welcome its expansion in scope
and resources with Microsoft's commitment."
The first slate of AI Collaborative and Fellows members will
work on projects that focus on the use of AI for analysis of public
data, to better utilize news and visual archives, to build audience
engagement, for creating new AI-based news tools and products, and
more. The projects were chosen through an application process led
by The Lenfest Institute with assistance from FT Strategies, a
global media consultant, and Nota, a provider of AI tools for
journalism.
"While nothing will replace the central role of reporters, we
believe that AI technology can help in the research, investigation,
distribution and monetization of important journalism. We're deeply
invested in supporting smaller, independent publishers through
initiatives like The Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and
Fellowship, ensuring they have access to the same cutting-edge
tools and opportunities as larger organizations," said Tom Rubin, chief of Intellectual Property and
Content, 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, which publishes The Chicago
Sun-Times and runs public radio station WBEZ, will focus on
leveraging AI for transcription, summarization and translation to
expand content offerings and reach new audiences.
- The Minnesota Star Tribune will experiment with AI
summarization, analysis and content discovery for both its
journalists and readers.
- Newsday will build AI public data summarization and
aggregation tools for its newsroom, for readers and for businesses
as a marketing services offering.
- The Philadelphia Inquirer will use AI platforms to build
a conversational search interface for its archives. It will also
leverage AI to monitor and analyze media produced by local
municipalities and agencies.
- The Seattle Times will use
AI platforms to assist in advertising go-to-market, sales training
support, and other sales analytics before rolling out learnings to
other business functions and departments.
"We need local journalism to inform and educate citizens, expose
wrongdoing, and encourage civic engagement. We will work with the
Lenfest AI Fellowship to drive AI innovation that can help news
organizations create new products to extend their reporting, find
new sources of revenue, and ultimately build a more sustainable
future," said Teresa Hutson,
corporate vice president, technology for fundamental rights at
Microsoft. "We hope these news organizations will be lighthouses
for the industry, to provide examples of how AI can build a better
future for the business of news."
To support the new Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and
Fellowship program and resources, OpenAI and Microsoft are each
awarding $2.5 million in direct
funding and $2.5 million in software
and enterprise credits, for a total of up to $10 million. The two-year pilot program is in
partnership with The Lenfest Institute's Local Independent News
Coalition (LINC), a group of eight of the largest independently
owned metropolitan news organizations in the United
States.
LINC is one of several Communities of Practice led by The
Lenfest Institute with funding from the 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, and The Tampa Bay Times.
Learn more about LINC here and sign up to receive updates
on the Lenfest AI Fellows experiments and lessons learned through
The Lenfest Institute Solution Set newsletter.
About The Lenfest Institute for
Journalism
The Lenfest Institute for Journalism creates 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
nationwide.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. Its mission is
to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of
humanity.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) creates platforms and tools
powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the
evolving needs of our customers. The technology company is
committed to making AI available broadly and doing so responsibly,
with a mission to empower every person and every organization on
the planet to achieve more.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.