A Note to Readers about AI
At Bay City News, we believe in a culture of experimentation and adaptation and aim to serve our readers and partners with journalism rooted in the principles of accuracy, transparency and audience trust. This means that we don’t shy away from the changing world around us; we embrace it, learn from it and adapt to it.
We intend to approach AI technology in the same way. This section includes examples of how we are testing these new tools so you can learn alongside us.
Click here to read our motivation for exploring AI and our newsroom policy about its use:
AI in the News
Check out the latest coverage around artificial intelligence tools, new legislation regarding its usage and more updates on the state of AI and technology. Find developments here about how tech companies, university researchers and entrepreneurs in the Bay Area are advancing the use of this technology.
Experiments with Artificial Intelligence
At Bay City News, we believe in a culture of experimentation, exploration, and transparency. As journalists, our reporters and staff are in a unique and valuable position to explore the rapidly developing AI technologies thoughtfully and reflect upon the ethics, applications, benefits and drawbacks of these tools. By sharing those experiments and reflections openly with our readers, we hope to demystify AI and give balanced insight into the current state of these technologies and the possibilities for their future use. See what we have done so far:
Catch Me Up: An experiment in AI podcasting
Local News Matters is testing an innovative way to bring you the daily news, so take a moment to listen in! We are launching a brand-new podcast — to be available every afternoon — using our original, independent reporting combined with an AI experiment to mimic the voice of Bay City News editor Leslie Katz. Tune in each day for quick updates on the biggest stories and events happening around the Bay Area, and subscribe so you never miss an update. This experiment is all about learning and gaining feedback from the community about what is useful to our readers and listeners. That’s where you come in! Each podcast will feature a survey. Let’s hear what you think!
Bay Area Election Results: can AI help?
Newsrooms across the country have been facing a daunting task when it comes to election coverage. Local newsrooms struggle especially with limited resources. But what if AI chatbots and other digital tools allowed us to automate this work for the previews and election-night results? How might we put our limited reporting and editing resources to better use by cutting out the manual labor and instead have more time to make sense of the results to inform, empower and engage our audiences? That would be a game changer. We are setting out to try it.
November 2024 Election: Bay Area Ballots
This Nov. 5, 2024 election dashboard was developed by Ciara Zavala and a dedicated team of journalists and engineers. The data was scraped from official county websites and then coded using ChatGPT and Claude.ai. Every step was carefully reviewed by human editors. While we aim for accurate and timely results, this dashboard relies on government data and automated tools so please allow for slight delays or discrepancies as editors verify the information.
Bay City Sketchbook: Generative AI Cartooning
Read about cartoonist Joe Dworetzky’s experiments with using generative artificial intelligence programs in his editorial cartooning. He details his process as well as his thoughts about the use of AI in image and generation and cartooning specifically.
Using AI tools to enhance photo display
Read about how AI technology is already embedded in existing photo tools and how the latest developments in AI imagery will impact photojournalism now and in the future.
Musk v. Altman: Tech titans battle over the future of all humankind
The most important lawsuit in the history of the world was filed Thursday in the Superior Court of San Francisco County. At least that is how this report would begin were it written in the style of the lawsuit Elon Musk has brought against Sam Altman and OpenAI, Inc. the creators of ChatGPT. This series of articles explores that lawsuit and its possible ramifications for AI technology, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the future of all humankind.
Sharing with Peers and Readers
Bay City News was recently invited to present our AI approach at the Story Discovery at Scale conference at Stanford University, hosted by Big Local News and sponsored by the Knight Foundation. Chloe Lee Rowlands, our technology and data manager, gave this presentation on what we do:
Explore AI
Check out these tools, resources, and reflections on AI to learn how others are making use of this technology, as well as how you can use it!
Agenda Watch
This tool uses AI technology to help keep watch on local government by gathering meeting agendas and minutes from city councils, school boards and other local decision-making bodies from around the U.S. The tool identifies newsworthy items to help streamline reporting and offers alerts when potentially newsworthy items appear in new documents.