News journalists turn to AI to uncover breaking stories

Artificial intelligence (AI) company Krzana is providing journalists at the UK’s largest news publisher Reach (formerly Trinity Mirror) with an AI news gathering platform.

Krzana’s platform monitors 60,000+ sources of news from the major social networks including Twitter, YouTube, local news sites and blogs and identifies newsworthy events before they trend on social media.

The user of Krzana sets up search criteria in advance, creating personalised newsfeeds based on interests and geographical locations. The system then sources text, video and images that match each of these newsfeeds as soon as they’re uploaded, including posts with zero views.

Krzana will enable journalists in Reach’s local newsrooms to uncover pre-trending news stories without requiring individuals to constantly monitor social media to search for breaking news events.

The company’s CEO Steve Godman, said: “We want to help journalists discover stories in real time before they become news. When it’s trending it’s too late. Krzana improves newsrooms’ output by allowing local journalists to spend less time hunting for stories and media, and more of it writing unique, insightful journalism.”

Karyn Fleeting, head of audience engagement at Reach, added: “Krzana is a third eye in our regional newsrooms. This AI tool is so fast and clever, it alerts our journalists to breaking news the moment something happens.”