As Gray Media executives began considering an AI strategy for their newsrooms, no clear answers emerged. But when speaking with NPF Widening the Pipeline fellows, Claire Magee Ferguson and Kim Wilhelm delivered a strong message for journalists debating how to engage with AI: technology can be a powerful assistant, but humans are needed as the source of accountability to audiences.
But their company’s AI journey was by no means easy. “Gray Media’s initial thoughts on AI were, ‘oh my gosh, absolutely not. Get it out of here, ‘ ” said Magee Ferguson, VP and Assistant General Counsel. Skepticism was rooted in the early experiences with AI hallucinations, including a key incident where a chatbot generated an entire false obituary for Ferguson herself.
Magee Ferguson and Senior Executive News Trainer Wilhelm recounted Gray Media’s strategy for creating and adopting “Ask grAI” a proprietary, in-house tool that was built to protect the integrity of journalism and safeguard company data. The launch of Ask grAI followed months of conversations about leveraging large language models, keeping the company’s data internal, developing AI policies, legal ramifications and viability of the tool.
Magee Ferguson stressed one immutable bottom line. “The North Star is maintaining our viewers trust. And accordingly, this has been the same from the very beginning of our AI policy. We have prioritized our viewers and our employees and our communities over the use of AI first.
Key Highlights
Gray Media created an in-house innovation lab by focusing on security. Unlike public tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini, “Ask grAI” is a closed, private loop. It allows journalists to use large language models without risking a data leak of sensitive source information.
The tool is designed to handle administrative tasks, including versioning broadcast scripts for digital platforms or summarizing hours of meeting footage. All of these tasks would save journalists time and make their jobs more efficient.
Human Responsibility
Despite the efficiency of “Ask grAI,” Gray Media’s policy is unyielding: every word that is published or broadcast is the sole responsibility of a human being. Magee Ferguson and Wilhelm establish that the machine is a tool and cannot do the work of an editor. Like other AI tools, it can also hallucinate and must be used only under the watchful eye of a human.
Practical Application
Wilhelm told Widening fellows how “Ask grAI” has already impacted investigative reporting. The true power is in its ability to find a needle in a haystack when it comes to parsing through public records. For example, the tool was used after the American Airlines plane crash into the Potomac River. Using the crash as a news peg, the investigative team used “Ask grAI” to analyze thousands if aviation safety complaints, quickly identifying red flags that a human reporter might have taken weeks to dig find. This tools level of data literacy is becoming a staple for helping modern reporters.
“I have been surprised because it’s more of the older journalists or more experienced journalists who I feel like have embraced this more than some of our newer younger journalists.” Wilhelm said, noting that seasoned reporters are often the ones leading the charge.
The Future
Magee Ferguson also addressed the risks of creating this AI tool. Every prompt a journalist inputs into an AI tool can become a legal record in discovery. Ferguson and Wilhelm urge reporters to maintain professionalism when speaking to AI and be wary of AI translations where a single mistranslated word could lead to a big defamation lawsuit.
Wilhelm and Magee Ferguson left journalists with a message of cautious empowerment. AI at Gray Media is not going to replace jobs, but it will create new roles focused on training AI and development. The goal of “Ask grAI” is to give journalists more time to do what only humans can including building relationships and finding original sources.
Access the full transcript here.
