They Think AI Can Do More Than It Actually Can: Practices, Challenges, & Opportunities of AI-Supported Reporting In Local Journalism

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2602.22887v1
• Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 11:25:31 GMT
• Title: They Think AI Can Do More Than It Actually Can: Practices, Challenges, & Opportunities of AI-Supported Reporting In Local Journalism
• Authors: Besjon Cifliku, Hendrik Heuer,
• Abstract summary: Findings: Local journalists do not fully leverage AI's potential to support data-related work.<n>Despite local journalists' limited awareness of AI's capabilities, they are willing to use it to process data and discover stories.
• Score: 13.52144719653642
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Declining newspaper revenues prompt local newsrooms to adopt automation to maintain efficiency and keep the community informed. However, current research provides a limited understanding of how local journalists work with digital data and which newsroom processes would benefit most from AI-supported (data) reporting. To bridge this gap, we conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with local journalists in Germany. Our study investigates how local journalists use data and AI (RQ1); the challenges they encounter when interacting with data and AI (RQ2); and the self-perceived opportunities of AI-supported reporting systems through the lens of discursive design (RQ3). Our findings reveal that local journalists do not fully leverage AI's potential to support data-related work. Despite local journalists' limited awareness of AI's capabilities, they are willing to use it to process data and discover stories. Finally, we provide recommendations for improving AI-supported reporting in the context of local news, grounded in the journalists' socio-technical perspective and their imagined AI future capabilities.

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