Publisher uses artificial intelligence program to fill in when a reporter can't cover town meetings in Vermont

White River Valley Herald Publisher Tim Calabro, left, uses A.I. to cover
some of his area's many town meetings. (Photo by Ben Deflorio, Seven Days)

Challenged by finding reporters to cover  selectboard meetings, Vermont's White River Valley Herald editor and publisher Tim Calabro "decided last year to try using artificial intelligence, or AI. . . . Calabro downloaded a set of meeting minutes and fed it into ChatGPT," reports Anne Wallace Allen of Seven Days, an independent weekly paper covering Vermont. "Calabro asked ChatGPT to create a summary of the meeting. He compared the result with the minutes to see how well it had captured what happened."

Commenting on the "bots job," Calabro told Allen, "It wasn't awful." To improve output, Calabro decided to feed Chat GPT more information, including "the Associated Press Stylebook, a standard for grammar and usage employed in many newsrooms," Allen writes. "Calabro checks the AI-generated summaries against the meeting notes to make sure they are accurate, and he adds context, such as biographical or historical information, if needed."

For now, Calabro is unique among Vermont's publishers, many of whom have discouraged AI use. Calabro framed his AI philosophy for his readers in one of his columns: "Like the invention of the computer itself, AI promises to fundamentally change work. Whether that's good or bad will depend on how thoughtfully we can decide how to utilize this new tool." Calabro has deployed AI to cover town meetings because they are "usually held at night [and] can be long and boring," Allen explains. "Most of the paper's paid correspondents and volunteers would rather write about something else."

Reputable news outlets appear to agree with Calabro's cautious approach. "Sports Illustrated is using AI to generate brief articles and story ideas, according to the Columbia Journalism Review," Allen reports. "On October 10, the AP announced that it's experimenting with five AI-based products to help small news organizations deliver information about public safety incidents, weather, city council meetings and news. All will be overseen by human editors, according to Nieman Lab, a fellowship and research program for journalists."

"The Herald covers 16 towns, and Calabro depends on the enthusiasm of his correspondents to learn what's happening in them," Allen reports. "Calabro said he'd rather rely on a human journalist — and, for the moment, an intern is covering meetings — but when she's gone, he'll go back to using AI. It's not taking work away from a reporter, he reasoned, and can at least give readers a basic understanding of what their selectboard is doing." He told Allen: "The information is important either way. It should be in people's hands."