Artificial intelligence—to many, it’s a scary concept. To others, especially early adopters of systems like ChatGPT, it’s become a valuable tool in their lives.  

There is a lot of talk about AI's place in journalism and whether it should be part of any process, and I find a lot of unnecessary fear.  

I am often asked about it: how we are using it, whether we use it to create stories, what it does, why we put a disclaimer on page 2 and our website, and what more we can do to promote transparency of its use.  

My newsroom has been at the forefront of Newsquest's use of AI. We have an AI-assisted reporter called Sophie Day. Sophie is a real person; some of the longer-term readers will remember her from when she worked at the Hampshire Chronicle. She’s been a journalist for almost a decade and has worked the beats of Andover, Salisbury, Winchester, and Basingstoke.  

However, the AI role appealed to her because it would allow her to be at the forefront of technology while also being able to work from home and work regular hours.  

Her job role is AI-assisted reporter - however, she’s probably more appropriately named an AI editor.  

She uses company-created AI, which is secure and filled with all our prompts and styles, to help her process a large volume of stories. She checks and verifies to ensure that what AI produces is correct and in the style that our readers expect.  

To be clear, AI is not generating these stories, we are giving it something to work on. It's more helping in the editing and production. 

These are usually the smaller stories you’d expect to see in a local newspaper. Press releases from businesses, cheque presentations from charities, news from local schools – that sort of thing. Largely sent in and very well written in the first place, however, the copy is usually in need of putting into our style and often summarizing into a set word count, and it also needs processing – so it needs headlines (of which we write three different ones for each story), a social sell for social media, metadata ticked so it appears on the right bit of the website, pictures and captions adding, and a whole bunch of other administrative things that come with each and every one of our stories these days.  

It’s not as simple as a reporter writing 200 words on something and pressing go. There’s lots more to what we do than what meets the eye.  

Over the years, dealing with these types of stories has become an increasing burden for our reporters. Email has opened the doors for a massive amount of communication, as well as through many other channels like WhatsApp and Facebook, to name just two.  

Dwindling staffing budgets mean only a small number of people remain in our newsrooms, and dealing with the sheer scale of people who want to communicate with us can quickly become overwhelming. It's interesting that many of these people who want to talk to us have not bought a local newspaper recently but still expect there to be staff working at their local newspaper office (presumably for free!).  

Most of our reporters do not appreciate being tied to a desk, carrying out administrative duties, or answering emails. They like to be out chasing stories, talking to people, uncovering wrongdoing, asking questions, championing their communities—anything but sitting in the office.  

Most reporters are drawn to local news because they are passionate about journalism. Let’s face it: it can be a thankless task, long, unsocial hours, and hard graft for low pay (especially as it takes, on average, four years to qualify), so you need to have a passion for it to be able to stick it out.  

The adoption of this scheme has freed up their time, and we are already seeing the benefits of them spending more time in the communities they serve. Whether that’s attending a council meeting in person, sitting through a case at court, or interviewing the owners of a new restaurant in person, it’s been great to see them start to flex their wings, and I hope to see a better mix of news as a result.  

Sophie is not alone; she’s part of a team working on Newsquest’s southern titles. So far, the scheme has been adopted by the Southern Daily Echo, the Somerset County Gazette, Bridgewater Mercury, Weston Mercury, and North Somerset Times. The team works remotely and covers for each other if someone is on holiday or training.  

A new reporter will join them in December when the Bournemouth Echo comes on board, and we are currently advertising and recruiting for a reporter to join the Dorset Echo.  

The scheme is growing, and while sitting at home working on a large number of stories might not be some journalists' dream job, others understand that they are doing work that’s vital to helping newspapers better serve their communities. They are part of a team, and their presence, and especially their efficiency, is allowing local news to not just survive but thrive.