Ep. 15 – A Small Newsroom's Guide to AI

The Upgrade: Beyond the Hype

The unofficial slogan of the Center for Cooperative Media at Monclair State University is collaborate or die. The Center, which works to help small newsrooms both in New Jersey and around the world to succeed, believes in the power of sharing resources to help local news outlets survive during these challenging times. It was that sort of spirit that inspired Joe Amditis, the Center’s Associate Director of Operations, to create free guides to help small newsrooms and media professionals understand how to use AI tools. In this week’s episode, host Peter Bittner talked with Joe about these resources and how small newsrooms can succeed in a world where AI-generated content poses a threat to quality journalism.

Show Notes:

(4:43) A roundup of best uses for AI tools

(10:03) Resources Joe created for small news organizations about how to use AI

(11:34) Where to find Joe’s free AI guides

(12:31) The basics of prompt writing

(13:34) Joe’s guide for newsmakers about image-generating prompts

(16:16) The mistakes big tech made with generative search

(21:07) Joe’s manifesto of hope about why small newsrooms can succeed in a digital sea of artificially generated nonsense

(22:40) How the monetization of GPTs can hurt small publications

(25:28) The demise of the tinkering generation and a call for an open source movement

(27:05) The pros and cons of trying to regulate the open source community

Learn more about the Center for Cooperative Media – a hub of collaborative resources and ideas

Where to find Joe’s free AI guides:

• Beginner’s prompt handbook: ChatGPT for local news publishers
• Beginner’s guide: Custom GPTs for local news publishers
• A beginner’s guide to image generation with DALL-E 3

Learn more about The Upgrade and our online courses

Connect on LinkedIn with Peter Bittner, The Upgrade’s founder and CEO

Special thanks to Mitch Walker for helping to design the podcast’s artwork