Newsday and The Minnesota Star Tribune are among those receiving funds to adapt to AI, Photo Credit: Unsplash/Levart Photographer
Microsoft and OpenAI on Tuesday announced the AI Collaborator and Fellowship Program in collaboration with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Under the program, the two tech giants will spend over $10 million (roughly Rs. 84.07 crores) in direct funding as well as enterprise credits for using proprietary software. The companies highlighted that the program aims to increase the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in newsrooms. Five news outlets have been announced as the beneficiaries of this fellowship program.
Microsoft, OpenAI to fund news outlets
In a blog post, OpenAI announced the fellowship program. The AI firm highlighted that it is partnering with Microsoft and the Lenfest Institute of Journalism to “help newsrooms explore and implement ways in which artificial intelligence can help foster business sustainability and innovation in local journalism”. The funding initiative called the Lenfest Institute AI Collaborators and Fellowships program has finalised five news outlets that will receive the initial round of funding.
According to the post, the selected news outlets include Chicago Public Media, Newsday (Long Island, NY), The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times. Each of them will receive $2.5 million (roughly Rs. 21 crores) in direct funding and $2.5 million in software and enterprise credits, for a total of up to $10 million.
This will be a two-year programme with the Lenfest Institute’s Local Independent News Coalition (LINC) and a group of eight metropolitan news organisations in the US. During this period, news organizations will collaborate with each other as well as the larger industry ecosystem to “share learnings, product development, case studies, and technical information needed to help other newsrooms replicate their work.” Additionally, three more news organizations will be awarded funding in a second round of grants.
The larger goal of the fellowship program is to help news outlets develop the capability to use AI to analyze public data, create news and visual archives, build new AI tools for newsrooms, and more. OpenAI said the recipients were selected following an extensive application process.
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