By Stephanie Zucarelli
The amount of data and metadata on the web is virtually infinite. The downside to this massive influx of Big Data is the suppression of key information, which often gets buried beneath the tons of reports published every minute. One strategy journalists use to tackle this challenge is training Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, which offer a potential solution to avoid missing vital insights for content creation. This is the core focus of Mattia Peretti, a journalist dedicated to the development and research of AI technologies to optimize data processing in journalistic work.
His specialized work began at the European Journalism Centre, where he coordinated and planned logistics for tech innovation events within editorial structures. As a team leader, he focused on guiding the editorial and financial aspects of the News Impact program, funded by the Google News Initiative. This management role gave him valuable perspective into content creation workflows and underscored the importance of integrating automated processes into news analysis.
In early 2019, he began leading teams at JournalismAI, a joint project between The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the Google News Initiative. Under the umbrella of Polis—LSE’s journalism think tank—this AI initiative focused on analyzing news consumption metadata to create effective editorial strategies for newsrooms.
I believe that the availability of public data—both for training algorithms and investigating stories—is extremely important for journalism, which is why more journalists should be able to access public data seamlessly and efficiently,” Peretti noted during the “Data Talks: JournalismAI” series.
The JournalismAI program aims to normalize machine learning across all types of journalistic production to streamline traditional data gathering workflows. As part of this effort, Peretti works to raise awareness about the impact of AI in journalism and champion editorial workflows designed around relevant AI tools.
To learn more about Mattia Peretti‘s insights, register for his talk on the Media Party X website.
