CINCINNATI — For the TV version of this story, I used artificial intelligence to write an introduction that one of our anchors read.
I had already written and edited most of the story by then, which included four interviews with journalists at WCPO. But I often struggle with boiling down an entire story to a couple sentences. So I put my TV script into what we call Engine Room.
This is what it gave me back:
Artificial intelligence is changing how many industries work — including journalism. At WCPO 9, reporters say they use AI as a tool to help identify sources, check facts and save time — but not to write stories. Keith BieryGolick shows us how the newsroom is putting safeguards in place while adapting to this new technology.
That's not entirely true.
WCPO 9 reporters talk AI in the video below:
A lot of our reporters use AI to help write for our website, going through a similar process to what I described above — taking what we've already written for TV and make it easier to read online.
So I changed my introduction to this:
Artificial intelligence is changing how industries work — including journalism. From identifying sources to double‑checking facts, AI is used in our newsroom every day. As part of national news literacy week, WCPO 9 News Reporter Keith BieryGolick spoke to some of our staff about how we're navigating this change.
To do this, I spent some time with WCPO Executive Reporter Craig Cheatham. He’s the one who manages most of our reporters, and it’s primarily been his responsibility to oversee how we use artificial intelligence.
“I have mixed feelings about AI,” Cheatham said, who was an investigative reporter here before taking this position in 2024.
He tells me he worries relying too heavily on it could hurt critical thinking skills — of reporters and everyone else outside the station who uses it. But he says he doesn’t see artificial intelligence as the enemy.
“I see AI as a tool,” Cheatham said. “AI can save us a lot of frustration."
He says reporters regularly use it to identify people to talk to, help with planning and even identify mistakes before stories are published.
“We use it to give us more time to tell better stories and have a bigger impact in the community,” Cheatham said. “We don’t ever want it to think for us — and we don’t want it to create our product. And it’s not."
Across the newsroom, De’Jah Gross is writing a script for her TV story. She shows me how she used AI to help write an online article the day before. Engine Room is up on her laptop.
"That sounds like AI wrote it," Gross said. "So I didn't include all of that, but I did use this as a base."
Keith wants to hear from you. You can contact him here:
At the bottom of that story, there's a disclaimer: This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
I tell her I sometimes worry about what people might think of that note.
“I’m not just throwing in these interviews and saying, 'Hey, AI — write me a story' and then putting my name on,” Gross said. “That’s not the case.”
For breaking news, Gross tells me she sometimes has about 20 minutes to gather information and figure out what to say.
“AI can’t do that for me,” Gross said. “AI is not out in the field getting answers to questions we may have — or our audiences may have. We’re doing that work.”
For more information about how we use AI at WCPO, you can click on this link.
