According to executive chair Michael Miller, News Corp Australia is utilizing generative AI to produce 3,000 articles every week. According to a story in Mediaweek, Miller stated at the World News Media Congress in Taipei that a team of four employees uses the technology to produce thousands of local reports each week on the weather, fuel costs, and traffic conditions.
Peter Judd, the data journalism editor for News Corp, oversees the Data Local section, and he is credited in many of the stories. The unit augments the content that journalists write for the 75 hyperlocal mastheads owned by the corporations around the nation, including those in Penrith, Lismore, Fairfield, Bundaberg, and Cairns.
According to a News Corp representative, stories like “Where to find the cheapest fuel in Penrith” are produced by AI under the supervision of journalists. The fact that the reports are generated using AI is not disclosed on the page.
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The spokeswoman claimed it would be more accurate to describe the 3,000 articles as giving service information and that Miller had in fact made the remarks at a conference last month.
For instance, the automated updating of local fuel prices, daily court lists, traffic and weather reports, and death and burial notices has been done for some time using artificial intelligence, according to the spokeswoman.
“I’d like to emphasize that the Data Local team’s working journalists oversee all such information and judgements,” she said. According to a recent job posting by News Corp for a data journalist, creating automated content to build a proposition and pipeline for revenue is one of the responsibilities.
In Australia, the majority of newsrooms are investigating AI’s potential. In a statement to Guardian Australia, the ABC said that it was concentrating on artificial intelligence applications that may improve content accessibility. This includes transcription of audio content, text-to-speech delivery of articles using AI voice and translation, as well as recommendations and personalization.