[BETA] Build Solutions Like You Report Stories
The Newsroom AI Lab Playbook helps you use the same instincts you bring to reporting - listening, observing, questioning assumptions - to move from fuzzy challenges to technical solutions that are actually useful to your work.
/ The Newsroom AI Lab Playbook
Starting a new reporting project doesn't mean you already know the headline-or even the angle. You gather observations, facts, and perspectives before determining what the story really is. Our approach uses the same instinct for building technical solutions.
Most technical projects in newsrooms, AI or otherwise, stall not because the technology failed, but because a solution was chosen before the problem was understood. We developed this Playbook to help you get clear on the problem you are trying to solve, and use that insight to discover the right solution.
1/
Collaborate with the people doing the work
Find out what reporters, editors, community members, and partners are actually experiencing - before forming any opinions about what to build.
2/
Don't be a hammer looking for a nail
Resist the pull toward a specific solution. Define the problem clearly first - the right tool becomes clear once you know what you're actually solving.
3/
Test it before you scale it
Build quickly - get a functional prototype in front of real users as soon as possible, then let what you learn shape what you scale. We aim to discover what works (and what doesn't!) before we bet big on any particular solution.
/ Built by Newsroom Technologists
We use this Playbook every day.Our experiences working as reporters, developers and technologists in newsrooms ranging from Connecticut Mirror to The Washington Post have shown us the parts of Design Thinking that are actually useful in journalism contexts.
We've used and refined this Playbook while collaborating with our diverse group of Newsroom AI Lab cohort partners - including statewide newsrooms, journalism service orgs and international research communities. From Wisconsin Watch to Bellingcat, Tradeoffs to Deep South Today we've seen this process lead to solutions that actually stick and skills that can be reused for future projects.
Partner newsrooms
/ Why This Approach Works
Developed in real newsrooms. Through real projects. We've guided many projects, including all cohort work in the Newsroom AI Lab-from Wisconsin Watch building an alt text generator to Connecticut Mirror investigating large public records-using this exact Playbook.
No technical background required. You don't need to know how to code to use this Playbook. It's about thinking through each problem clearly-and the clearer you can describe the problem, the better AI tools can help you build the solution.
AI coaches built for every stage. We've built specialized AI assistants and Agent Skills for each stage of the Playbook to offer a thinking partner at every step.
Solutions that actually get used. Teams that follow this process build tools that get adopted-because they solved a problem people actually had, not one that seemed likely from the outside.