Online news and Generative AI — Barry Adams // Polemic Digital

Show Notes

• 01:53
  Challenges and opportunities of generative AI in news and publishing

  Generative AI was initially seen as a threat to journalism but is now viewed as a tool to do better journalism. Now, news organizations are exploring ways to implement it as part of their workflows and support journalists in their core tasks.
• 04:22
  Using generative AI to generate optimized headlines

  One notable application is using generative AI to suggest optimized headlines for news stories to increase visibility in search and social media channels. This streamlines the process for journalists whose main skill set doesnt include SEO or social media management.
• 05:42
  Tailoring prompts for headlines for search vs. social media

  For news stories targeted at search engines, it's vital to use prompts that emphasize the inclusion of the main keyword to help search engines rank it accordingly. Social media headlines can be more sensationalist, with prompts focused on encouraging engagement and clicks.
• 07:58
  Limitations and considerations in using generative AI models in news publishing

  LLMs have a knowledge cutoff, so you need to double-check information, especially for events occurring after the model's training data. Human editorial oversight is essential to ensure accuracy, language appropriateness, and fact-checking.
• 10:51
  AI enhancing the workflow of journalists and internal linking

  The current generation of AI tools has made automation tools that publishers were already using even better. Now, AI tools can automatically put in links to topic and tag pages when an article is being published, making the workflow for journalists easier and internal linking more consistent.
• 14:02
  Guardrails for effective internal linking using AI

  Publishers should focus on topics where they have journalistic expertise and regularly create valuable content. Additionally, human oversight is required to oversee the process, add new tags as needed, and remove out-of-date tags for content no longer being covered.
• 17:35
  Future outlook for generative AI in news and publishing SEO

  Generative AI was expected to be a radical pivot moment in the web and SEO but its proven to be more of an evolution. Currently, it requires a cautious approach, monitoring, and conversations around safeguarding the responsible use of AI technologies.