This week we’re introducing a new feature to provide you with coverage you probably don’t see anymore — articles about road construction, event announcements and trash pickups. As local news has shrunk, those stories have often been eliminated.
We’re going to provide them thanks to the power of artificial intelligence and the discerning eye of a human editor through an experimental feature we’re calling The 10th Street Journal. Every weekday, 10th Street will carry a few short stories that will provide you with news from around Durham. Stories such as:
- Government actions that affect how you work and play such as road closures, airport news and activities at local parks.
- Announcements about upcoming meetings of government boards and commissions.
- Community events such as festivals and celebrations.
The stories will be generated by AI from news releases or other official sources, which will enable us to produce them more quickly and efficiently than if we relied on a student journalist. They will be reviewed by 10th Street Editor Joel Luther for content, accuracy and style before they are published. They will carry the 10th Street Journal byline to indicate they were created by AI.
We named the new feature 10th Street to invoke the name of our publication, but it also is a wink to the fact that we are using AI. (There is no 10th Street in Durham — as far as we know!)
Like many of our readers, we are unsure about the future of AI in journalism. We know it can produce errors and needs a human touch. But we also believe it can be harnessed to fill a void in local journalism. We are excited to be on the leading edge of this new effort.
Bill Adair, Editor
Alison Jones, Managing Editor
The 9th Street Journal
