Welcoming the 2024 cohort of JournalismAI Fellows
It’s that time of the year again! We are very excited to announce this year’s selection of the JournalismAI Fellowship cohort.
But before we get to that, some context. We are conducting the Fellowship for the third year in a row, with the support of the Google News Initiative. The Fellowship brings together journalists and technologists from across the world to use AI technologies to improve journalism.
This year, we started the application process earlier than usual, kicking things off in January. We did this to adapt to the feedback we received from previous Fellows with a request for more time to work on their projects. It was a gamble, but we are thrilled at the overwhelming response to the Fellowship. We received just under 300 applications (297 to be exact) from all over the world.
How did the application and selection process work?
The Fellowship is all about collaboration and exploration, so our process is a little bit complex. From these nearly 300 applications, we shortlisted candidates from about 40 organisations based on their project proposals and strengths as candidates. The selected candidates then engaged in a guided “match-making” process over three weeks. During this time they interacted with one another intending to find the best fit for collaboration, in teams of either four or six. Once they created teams, they submitted a joint proposal for their final application.
These proposals were then evaluated for final selection by the JournalismAI team and the Knight Lab at Northwestern University.
The result is a combination of 40 journalists and technologists who represent 22 news organisations and 18 countries to form the 2024 JournalismAI Fellowship cohort. They will be working in 7 teams over 7 months and will be supported with access to our network and mentorship.
2024 JournalismAI Fellows
Here are the 2024 JournalismAI Fellows and their project ideas:
AURA: Advanced Understanding and Research Assistant
Aura is a conversational AI platform designed to help journalists navigate and extract stories from complex unstructured data, for example, in science and technology. By leveraging generative AI, Aura offers instant context and investigative leads, enhancing the depth and quality of journalistic content.
Fellows:
Vivek Arya, Chief Product Manager, Indian Express (India)
Krishan Kumar Arya, Chief Manager - AI/ML Tech, Indian Express (India)
Tabtim Duenger, Data Scientist, The Economist (UK)
Alok Jha, Science and Technology Editor, The Economist (UK)
Aida Kokonovic, Digital Project Manager & OSINT Journalist, Danish Broadcasting Corporation (Denmark)
Martin Schori, Deputy Managing Editor, Aftonbladet (Sweden)
Know Your Leader
Know Your Leader will be an Al-powered chatbot that will allow the public and journalists to track political speech, comments and opinions. The tool aims to watch over political leaders' positions taken in the past on a variety of topics such as economic issues, social issues, environmental issues, foreign policy, etc, and display them to the public.
Fellows:
Mohammed Haddad, Interactive Editor, Al Jazeera (Qatar)
Mohamed Anes Mostefaoui, Lead Backend Engineer, Al Jazeera (Qatar)
Nicholas Adeniyi, Project Officer, CJID (Nigeria)
Monsur Hussain, Head of Innovation, CJID (Nigeria)
Juana Copello, Visual Journalist, La Nación (Argentina)
Felix Ramallo, Head of Editorial Product, La Nación (Argentina)
IntelliNewsComparer: GenAI-based document comparison tool
IntelliNewsComparer will employ machine learning to semantically compare text documents in English, Finnish, and Tagalog. Utilising pre-trained LLMs will enable swift, precise vector searches with a user-friendly interface for querying document similarities. Adaptable to multiple documents and LLM sources, it can expedite the examination of documents in investigative newsroom projects.
Fellows:
Bernice Marie S. Sibucao, Senior Manager/Deputy Head of the Digital Strategy and Innovation Lab, GMA Network (Philippines)
Rodelio Arenas, Assistant Vice President, Information Technology and Data Privacy, GMA Network (Philippines)
Elisa Bestetti, Developer, Helsingin Sanomat (Finland)
Paivi Ala-Risku, Data Producer, Helsingin Sanomat (Finland)
CheckMate
Our proposal is a simple web app for real-time fact-checking on live or recorded video and audio broadcasts. This will enable journalists to easily identify and debunk false claims and enable newsrooms to actively work to prevent the spread of misinformation over a significant election year.
Fellows:
Gibran Mena Aguilar, Director, DataCrítica (Mexico)
Tom Potter, R&D Engineer, BBC (UK)
Nadine Forshaw, Assistant Head of Audience, The Sun (UK)
Luke Sikkema, Head of Editorial Operations, The Times (UK)
Manja Borchert, Frontend developer, DPA (Germany)
Arne Beckmann, Fact-checking Editor/Developer, DPA (Germany)
Real Estate Alerter
We aim to harness anomaly detection methods and LLMs to uncover hidden news stories within real estate data. Our goal is to create an alert system, providing reporters with a head start on newsworthy stories, utilising AI to gain an edge in breaking news and investigative journalism.
Fellows:
Anjanette Delgado, Executive Editor, Detroit Free Press (USA)
Amelie Sutton, Product Manager, News Automation and AI, Gannett (USA)
Zahra Naghsh, Senior Data Scientist, The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Patrick Dell, Senior Visual Editor, The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Hans Jørgen Roe, Editorial Developer, E24 (Norway)
Andreas Fosse, User Data and AI Lead, E24 (Norway)
StyleCheck
We aim to develop an AI-driven tool to check adherence of articles with the newsroom’s style guide. Integrated with a cleanup tool for article copy, it would provide suggestions that can be overwritten. By aiming to apply guidelines more consistently, we hope to improve the quality and credibility of news.
Fellows
Nathalie Samaha, Editorial Client Coordinator for Middle East/North Africa, AFP (France)
James Pheby, Journalist, AFP (France)
Serafim Romanov, News editor, UX/UI designer, Novaya Gazeta (Latvia)
Artemiy Garin, Technical Director, Novaya Gazeta (Latvia)
David O'Mahony, Assistant Editor, Irish Examiner (Ireland)
Claire Porter, Senior Web developer, Irish Examiner (Ireland)
Data Robot Aide
We plan to make an open framework called Data Robot AIde for data-driven and LLM-powered AI chatbots. This framework will help newsrooms create chatbots using different structured datasets, like elections, census, crime, healthcare, etc. These chatbots will speed up storytelling and help find initial story ideas. Our primary focus will be on census and election data as a use case.
Fellows:
Adrián Blanco Ramos, Graphics Reporter, The Washington Post (USA)
Atthar Mirza, Application Architect, Bloomberg (USA)
Marina Caporlingua, Data Developer, Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy)
Silvia Martelli, Multimedia Journalist, Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy)
Ankit Kumar, Editor, India Today (India)
Piyush Aggarwal, Editor, India Today (India)
Previous Fellowships