Saturday Special: The publishers taming AI and algorithms
Behind Local News profiles the projects which show innovation is alive and well in newsrooms around the UK
Hello,
Mention Artificial Intelligence and journalism in the same sentence in a room of journalists, and you’ll soon have a list of what could go wrong.
But at Newsquest, owner of more local newspaper titles than any other publisher in the UK, the company is determined to show how AI is a good thing for both journalists and readers.
That’s the main message to emerge from its shortlisted entry for digital initiative of the year at the Regional Press Awards, being held on Tuesday in London.
Newsquest’s entry features alongside nominations which focus on reaching younger audiences, finding new ways to engage people with local politics, creating new content types for local readers, in-depth video storytelling and making the most of WhatsApp.
For an industry where change is now constant, and the needs of readers changing all the time, the six nominations present a snapshot of a profession willing to try new things to keep up with audience demand.
Today, Behind Local News looks at the entries, presented in the words of the newsrooms who submitted their entries.
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Behind Local News
Turning AI into a solution for journalism’s enduring challenges
Nomination: Newsquest
“In a year that has been pivotal for artificial intelligence, with both its potential and its risks, our news organisation has embarked on a journey to incorporate it safely into our newsrooms while reaping the benefits of the technology to better serve our audience. Recognising that time is one of the journalist’s most valuable resources, and acknowledging the relentless demand for content, we are turning AI into a solution to these enduring challenges.
“To this end, we have developed our own AI tool, DotDash News Creator, designed to draft trusted stories from trusted notes — a feat requiring extensive coding, development, expertise, and feedback. This tool is central to our innovative approach, which includes the establishment of a safe ‘human-in-the-loop’ workflow. This critical step ensures that while we leverage the efficiencies of AI, we do so without compromising the quality and integrity of our journalism.
“The cornerstone of our initiative has been the creation of seven ‘AI-assisted reporter’ roles in a new team, which continues to grow. These roles, a first in the industry, utilise our AI tool within the structured workflow we’ve established. The impact has been transformative: our AI-assisted reporters are producing high-quality news at an unprecedented rate. This has allowed our traditional reporters to shift their focus to ‘human touch’ journalism and more in-depth content tailored to our loyal audience, enhancing our overall output of compelling, local news.
“One of the most significant outcomes of this initiative is the winning back of time for our traditional reporters. They have more time to return to the field, engaging directly with sources and stories, and focusing on the journalism that resonates with our audience. Our AI-assisted reporters have been instrumental in maintaining our essential and ‘grass roots’ news coverage, allowing reporters to concentrate on exclusive quality content and breaking news, exemplified by our coverage of the Sycamore Gap story. Our AI assistance played a supporting role in election coverage for The Argus, enabling frontline reporters conduct in-depth interviews and get to the heart of the action.
“The increase in the quality and volume of community news is another achievement. Our enhanced AI-assisted capabilities mean we can now give voice to a wider spectrum of our community, covering everything from public notices and fundraisers to charity appeals and local business news.
“Safety and ethical considerations have been at the forefront of our AI integration. We have built a risk matrix system around different story types to carefully assess and manage the risks associated with certain journalistic contexts. This system is continuously refined, with a rigorous process for logging errors and feedback, ensuring that our AI tool and systems uphold the highest standards of journalistic integrity.
“By harnessing the power of AI responsibly, we are helping to redefine the newsroom by freeing up reporters to focus on important stories, enhancing our ability to deliver diverse news content while maintaining our commitment to ethical journalism. This initiative complements our mission to provide excellent journalism that truly connects with and serves our community.”
Using follower data to tailor content for different platforms and different readers
Nomination: Manchester Evening News Curiously team
“The Manchester Evening News’ Curiously team is the latest addition to the newsroom and is tasked with creating new and repackaging existing content for under 35s.
“This is our fastest growing audience, with a large proportion of our target market now consuming content via shortform videos.
“Over the last 12 months since the introduction of our youth content team, our Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube audience has increased by over 150,000 followers and our accounts are now the go-to place for many under 35s in Greater Manchester and the wider region looking to find out what is happening in their area.
“Of our 181k+ followers on TikTok, 39% are aged 18–24, and 32% aged 25–34. On Instagram, we see a slightly older demographic (43% of our 311k+ main brand Instagram account audience is under 35), which is expected due the platform being older and more established. This follower data enables us to individually tailor content to the audiences on the platforms, rather than taking the ‘one size fits all’ approach.
“Creating content specifically for individual platforms is just one aspect of the successful strategy that has been developed and implemented by our small team of five.
“Other components include a tried and tested method of script writing, research into the best use of audio and onscreen ‘hooks’, examining data to explore optimum times of day to post, and understanding the importance of subtitles on platforms like Instagram which still sees a large percentage of users consume content without sound, unlike TikTok and Youtube on which sound is key.
“Similar to the Manchester Evening News’ website, the Curiously team’s primary focus is on local hard and breaking news, What’s On content (a tough market in a city as big as Manchester), and large national and trending topics. The packages we create are informative and engaging, and importantly, fit with the style and brand of TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Combined, our accounts generate hundreds of thousands of video views each day. They also help to drive further traffic to the website, in turn generating additional page views.
“As well as a style guide for our day-to-day content, the team has also developed a best practice template for vox pop video interviews which is now being replicated elsewhere in Reach PLC’s regional network. Our Under 35s video initiative is key to the future of the business and wider industry, and the Manchester Evening News team is a prime example of how to successfully implement such strategy into regional newsrooms.
“Not only does it enable younger audiences who may not engage with traditional news sources to access local news, but it also helps to develop brand awareness of the Manchester Evening News, with a view to converting viewers into loyal readers further down the line.
“The initiative is also key to Reach’s longer term revenue strategy. The quality of our output and growth of our accounts has already started to attract potential advertising and branded partnership clients.”
The ‘obsessions’ which build new audiences
Nomination: SurreyLive (Bake On, Bake Off)
“Bake On Bake Off is one of Reach’s Obsession newsletters which brings people with similar interests together and creates communities around them through newsletters.
“The newsletter is written by journalist Laura Nightingale whose love for baking and The Great British Bake Off shines through as she includes baking tips, news about the series and quick and easy recipes, many of which are inspired by the show.
“Laura is at the heart of the newsletter, a friendly face readers can relate to and share their baking successes and failures with. She often appears in the videos, signs off the newsletter personally and carries the brand across to her Instagram account where she has 52k followers to whom she cross- promotes the newsletter and her content.
“Bake On Bake Off was launched to capitalise on our audience’s interest in The Great British Bake Off by providing readers with a way of finding this content from our sites in one place. But it has evolved into more than just a newsletter focused on a TV series, it’s a community of like-minded people who come together twice a week all year round, to share their love of baking and their thoughts and pictures of their baking creations through Your Bakes.
“The fully-authored newsletter was launched in March 2021 and has sent more than 300 issues. During that time Bake On Bake Off has evolved in numerous ways, while building a community of followers, not only via newsletter subscribers but followers on Instagram and snapchat. The newsletter is sent twice a week and has 30,000 active subscribers.
“We also send ‘breaking’ newsletters when there are key updates, eg. when Alison Hammond was confirmed as the new co-host of The Great British Bake Off.
“The newsletter consistently has a high open rate with an average in October of 54%. This is a very high open rate compared to Reach newsletters and to newsletters/marketing emails generally. It shows readers are clearly very engaged with Bake On Bake Off and come back regularly.
“To ensure we evolved in the right way we launched a survey to find out what our subscribers wanted from the newsletter in terms of content and frequency. Subscribers were most interested in our easy to follow recipes and these results helped shape the future of Bake On Bake Off, to keep readers engaged throughout the year. Laura now shares links to videos she has made to help people recreate these recipes at home.
“The most popular examples include her ‘bake in a mug’ recipes such as a two-minute carrot cake recipe and larger creations like a lemon celebration cake. We have also experimented with the design of the newsletter to see if this improved the customer experience by using an authored template rather than a combined manual RSS which led to a permanent change in March 2022.
“The result is the newsletter is divided into easy to follow sections with clear calls to action for customers to continue reading if they want to.”
A new approach to politics as an election looms
Nomination: The Northern Agenda
“With a General Election now months away it’s more important than ever to shine a light on big political issues affecting the regions where voters will surely hold the key to Number 10.
“In the past year The Northern Agenda — a brand bringing together politics coverage from Reach’s titles in the North of England — has been bringing stories from outside the Westminster bubble to a digital audience through a daily email newsletter and weekly podcast. The Northern Agenda newsletter has 5,000 subscribers actively reading each month — among them council leaders, senior businesspeople, MPs, government departments and think-tanks. The podcast has had 23,000 listens in this calendar year, with one episode focusing on the often-overlooked town of Barrow downloaded 3,000 times. A new feature has been the award-winning cartoons of Graeme Bandeira, which now appear every Friday to bring humour and biting satire to our coverage.
“His illustrations have been a big hit on social media, with one about absent Liverpudlian MP Nadine Dorries getting 90,000 views on Twitter and another about Minister Therese Coffey’s carefree approach to Teesside crab deaths getting 70,000. To take the cartoons to another level, video producer Carly Holds took the static drawings and turned them into animated graphics, meaning readers could see the journey from pencil drawing to finished product and with the dialogue revealing itself piece by piece.
“One of Graeme’s pieces became an interactive graphic to illustrate a piece by Reach’s data unit into the eye-watering costs of consultants for hard-pressed town halls bidding for levelling up cash. Data journalist David Dubas-Fisher submitted Freedom of Information requests to 389 councils and revealed town halls spent £23m of public money on consultants to bid against each other for Levelling Up funds. Graeme’s cartoon depicted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove in front of a “£23m begging bowl”.
“Praising our work, Labour’s Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy said: “This investigation by the Northern Agenda exposes the absurdity of the government’s Hunger Games-style bidding system.”
“The newsletter’s normal style is bite-sized stories about the North but every so often we devote most of an edition to exclusive reports on issues like the growing crisis in NHS dentistry in our region, the North-South divide on asylum and the £5m weekly bill to send local children to school in taxis.
“Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons exclusively interviewed Michael Gove in the back of a taxi in Manchester — for a piece which also featured in the weekly podcast — and revealed that Education Secretary Gillian Keegan had rubbished mayor Andy Burnham’s education plans for Greater Manchester.
Clare Hayward of the NP11 business group said of The Northern Agenda: “Insightful and engaging reading…Your newsletter has become part of my daily read and has made such a difference to understanding the Northern landscape.”
“Meanwhile we’ve experimented with running episodes of the podcast, which has featured interviews with the likes of Alastair Campbell and Rachel Reeves, on YouTube to reach new audiences.”
Going beyond a website to find audiences where they are
Nomination: WalesOnline
“WalesOnline understands that journalism cannot be measured in page views alone and must exist beyond a website. That is why you will find our work published across multiple platforms, wherever we think our audience is most likely to find and appreciate it.
“After an undercover investigation lasting months, we produced an 18-minute video documentary we believe to be the first of its kind in the commercial regional press.
“It exposed the disgraceful inner workings of a direct sales firm in Cardiff whose workers went door to door trying to persuade people to give money to established UK charities.
“Wearing a hidden camera, we revealed behaviour which left a charity appalled and pledging to investigate every donation, a fundraising firm describing the footage as “unbelievable” and a regulator saying it is assessing our evidence.
“Our filming exposed lies and pressure-selling on doorsteps, new recruits being told to “trick” people into parting with their cash, job adverts with empty promises of minimum salaries and new starters being advised to spend less time with their families in behaviour described as “cult-like”.
“The video was viewed over two million times on TikTok, precisely where young people most at risk of falling into this insecure employment were most likely to see it. We also produce tailored videos for TikTok, where we seek to break down the news for a younger audience, from explainers on Welsh Government proposals to ban vapes to the reasons for the country’s new default 20mph speed limit.
“Our app is the most-read in the regional press, with stories read 14.5 million times on the app alone in October 2023.
“Our push notifications alert people in real time to news and events that have a tangible impact on their lives, like the closure of a busy road or a police incident where they live.
“Our newly-launched WhatsApp communities focus on news and sport and give us not only a direct relationship with our readers but a secure way to grow our audience. We achieved 300,000 page views in this way in October.
“We have 300,000 subscribers to newsletters on several different subjects from news to rugby and from small geographic communities to food and drink, including Wales Matters, which is an authored newsletter sent every day and dedicated to agenda-setting journalism.
“Our Welsh Rugby Podcast was launched in August in time for the Rugby World Cup. Hosted by two of our rugby journalists, it has secured a series of world class guests, including World Cup winning coach Steve Hansen, Welsh international player Dan Biggar and one of the highest-profile former internationals to have played the game, David Campese. Despite being weeks old, it quickly made the top 10 of rugby podcasts globally on Apple.”
How to become less reliant on algorithms
Nomination: Reach Regionals
“What does Elon Musk’s Twitter, Facebook’s latest pivot and TikTok’s huge growth have in common?
“All have been difficult for publishers wanting to monetise content, drive website referrals or grow brand loyalty. All are algorithm based and newsrooms have no say in which content gains exposure.
“The solution? Direct messaging. After months of research, building prototype systems and taking learnings from newsletters publishing Reach PLC has launched its first wave of WhatsApp Communities delivering news, sport, entertainment and one off events directly to thousands of people — no algorithm.
“Starting small in Q1 with HullLive testing a breaking news group it became clear audiences love it and the returns were better than we imagined. This should be no surprise as the Reuters Institute Digital News Report has been highlighting the growth of WhatsApp and news consumption for a while.
“WhatsApp in Europe and Asia is the third biggest platform for news consumption and in Latin American and Africa it is the second. In the UK the report highlights that WhatsApp is the second most used platform for 18 to 24s but is the one of the lowest for news consumption with WhatsApp mainly being used as a text messaging platform — according to Meta.
“We see this as an opportunity to grow audiences and build direct relationships between readers and our brands. Meta also confirmed to us that Reach is the only publisher in the world actively creating communities and developing API solutions to send pictures, videos and links at scale to take advantage of the opportunity.
“Reach has grown more than 80 WhatsApp Communities since its official launch at the start of Q2 this year ranging from traffic and travel to Royals and Liverpool FC news.
“One of our biggest successes was a temporary Eurovision group which grew to 2,000 members in a few days and achieved 17,000 page views from those members during Eurovision week. WhatsApp is giving us the loyalty seen in email newsletters but open rates and click through rates four or five times higher with WhatsApp also appealing to younger people.
“Our communities now have 120,000 people signed up who receive a handful of daily messages, written in a conversational style that fits with the app.
“Those messages have a 90% open rate with the majority opening them immediately due to the high penetration of the platform. We have also found that it is not unusual to gain more page views or videos views than the number of people in the community due to the sharing nature of the platform.
“From mid April we built our first 10,000 members across all groups and we gained 135,000 page views in less than three weeks. In May, members climbed to 18,000 and page views increased to 350,000 and in November we will record 2.4m views from 120,000 subscribers. Next we are exploring a full API solution, sponsorship to make our groups even more valuable to us and help us become less reliant on algorithms.”