How Indy newsrooms are using AI

May 20, 2026

This column is part of the Indianapolis Public Editor project, a pilot program designed to test whether the presence of a public editor who analyzes local coverage can elevate audience trust in journalism and promote media literacy.

News consumers have real fears about how artificial intelligence is used in journalism, with good reason. There are plenty of examples of newsrooms misusing AI.

People think AI is dangerous, harmful and creepy. They worry that AI will hallucinate or make stuff up. And many folks are concerned that AI will replace journalists’ jobs. They are also anxious that they will be flooded with so much noise and slop created by AI that it will be impossible to find reliable information. People hate AI.

I am worried about these things, too. Indianapolis newsrooms are in the early stages of experimenting with AI. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to look at how local newsrooms are using this technology and what ethical guidelines consumers should expect from their news providers.

Indy newsrooms have various approaches to AI

Of all the Indianapolis news outlets, Black Indy Live has been the most experimental in its use of AI. Laron Anderson, the platform’s editor-in-chief, said he has leaned into AI for many tasks, including designing his logo, generating graphics, polishing news stories, and coming up with promotional campaigns. He sees AI as a strategy for competing with larger news organizations with more resources. He even used the technology to create an AI avatar, Rae, to report the news when Black Indy Live first started in 2017. Rae was loved (and hated) by audience members, and Anderson says the only reason he stopped using it was because OpenAI discontinued Sora, the platform that produced avatars.

Most of the local newsrooms in Indy are much more conservative in their use of AI. Here’s a roundup of their policies:

• IndyStar: IndyStar journalists are expected to adhere to strict company guidelines that require transparency and human oversight.
• WFYI: Uses AI for transcriptions and captions. Reporters follow the station’s AI policy, which is “person-first/person-last,” meaning that a real person starts the reporting and takes a last look at the story before it’s published.
• Indiana Capital Chronicle: Uses AI to transcribe recordings, with reporters verifying quotes personally.
• Mirror Indy: Uses AI to transcribe notes. The outlet is developing a broader policy that will outline other permissible uses.
• Chalkbeat Indiana: Uses AI as a tool for transcribing some meetings, while still attending key meetings in person. It has an internal AI policy, but is still developing an external AI statement.
• Axios Indianapolis: as a national company, Axios has an AI policy on its website and a formal partnership with Open AI’s ChatGPT, which reporters use to analyze data and sort through documents.
• Indianapolis Business Journal: does not have a publicly available AI policy on its website.
• FOX59 and CBS4: As Nexstar companies, their AI policy requires that “all writing and reporting must be the work of the writer(s), producer(s), and reporter(s) involved in publishing or broadcasting a story. AI and AI tools should not be used to replace human judgment and/or critical thinking. Any use of AI by our newsrooms must be disclosed to the audience in a transparent fashion.”

All the newsroom leaders I interviewed (except for Laron Anderson of Black Indy Live) described a cautious approach. Some already have formal policies that they’ve shared with their audiences, while others are refining their approach.

For instance, Chalkbeat has internal guidelines for its reporters that encourage innovation, while holding true to Chalkbeat’s values, Bureau Chief MJ Slaby said.

“It’s never acceptable to ask AI to write a story and pass it off as your own or use AI to create or alter images,” she said, citing the guidelines. Internally, Chalkbeat’s guidelines call for only using company-approved tools that are more secure, understanding AI limitations, being transparent, maintaining human oversight, and embracing innovation that serves their mission. The organization is working on how to explain to the public how they use AI tools.

Mirror Indy created a newsroom committee to examine the issue and is also considering what community members want to know before adopting their AI policy. Amanda Kingsbury, Mirror Indy’s managing editor of innovation, assured me that, in addition to describing how and when to use AI, when their policy is complete, the outlet will provide training opportunities for staff.

“AI will not replace our journalists,” Kingsbury said. “We don’t use generative AI to write full articles or portions of articles. We don’t use AI to produce or alter photos, videos, illustrations, or graphics. We do not use AI to fact-check stories or write social media posts.”

Mirror Indy is considering using AI to produce audio versions of written stories, which Kingsbury said aligns with its mission to make its work accessible to a wider audience. Many reputable newsrooms already do this, including The New York Times and the Washington Post.

Experts tout the human-centered use of AI and highlight popular applications

I reached out to two journalism ethics experts for their takes on the industry and how Indianapolis newsrooms are using AI tools.

Benjamin Toff is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communications and director of the Minnesota Journalism Center. As a senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, he led the Trust in News Project, which concluded in 2023. Alex Mahadevan has trained close to 4,000 journalists, creators, and communicators in AI in person and virtually.

He’s a faculty member at the Poynter Institute and director of MediaWise, the institute’s media and AI literacy division.

According to Mahadevan, the most popular AI tools for journalists are those that transcribe interviews into text documents, such as Otter.

The well-known chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s Gemini are gaining ground, Mahadevan says. And Google’s NotebookLM is pushing to become the newsroom chatbot. “It’s being used by reporters quite a bit, more for organizing notes, interviews, and documents on individual stories,” Toff said.

How to consume news in the age of AI

The use of AI in journalism is increasing by the day. Here’s how to make sure it doesn’t degrade your experience as a news consumer. You don’t need to read 15 versions of the same story to get at the truth. There is a lot of duplication with AI that doesn’t offer the substantial quality of legitimate news outlets. Vetting a couple of news sources to figure out whom you trust and why can save you time and make life easier, Toff advises.

“At a minimum, I think people ought to be looking at the nature of the organization that they’re getting information from,” he said. “There are still some very good, in my view, quality news organizations that are investing in original reporting and news gathering, confirming information and doing the hard work that is journalism.”

Look for disclosures that tell you how newsrooms are using AI. For example, WRTV and WISH-TV post disclosures at the end of their news stories.

Mahadevan called WRTV’s disclosure in this story by reporter Gregg Montgomery a pretty good example because it specifically mentions the editorial team and adhering to journalistic standards for accuracy and fairness. This WISH-TV story is another good example because it says exactly how the content was originally created for broadcast and then reformatted by AI for the station’s website.

When AI expands access, like translating stories to different languages, or reformatting a story from one platform to another, like text to audio, that helps newsrooms accommodate different abilities and preferences for accessing stories, which is great for the community. WFYI often provides an audio version link to their stories, like this one by Abriana Herron.

Look for news organizations that promise to keep a human in the loop verifying that AI work is accurate. For example, as per their policy, Indiana Capital Chronicle’s reporters verify quotes personally that AI transcribes from recordings.

WFYI has the same policy. News Director Sarah Neal-Estes explains the station’s person-first/person-last policy. “We don’t just let AI do the work, we use it as a tool, ” she said. “For example, I do the interview first, person-first. I put it in Otter, then I fix that transcript, person-last; OtterAI always has mistakes.”

Learn how to read AI disclosures. Watch out for disclosures that are confusing or vague. You should be suspicious if AI is used to make something that’s not real, like a photo, a video, or a whole reporter.

“When it comes to using AI to mimic a human being, that is a bridge too far and is ethically fraught because you are essentially, even if you are very clear with the disclosure, someone is still going to think that’s a real human being,” said Mahadevan. “So you are deceiving people even if you are trying your best not to, and audiences just do not like that.”

We want journalists to develop good uses for AI, like better tools for sifting through data for investigative reports and analyzing public meeting notes and publicly available documents to monitor the government. We want news organizations to be transparent in how they are using these tools. There are so many bad actors out there using AI to deceive, distract, or annoy us. We need objective journalistic content to rise above the noise and stand out for the quality that it is, even while harnessing the power of AI.

I’d love to hear from you. Please send your questions about Indy’s media ecosystem to indypubliceditor@poynter.org, or reach out to let me know if you’d like me to come speak to your community group. Your input helps strengthen Indianapolis’ local journalism.

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The Indy Public Editor is a grant-funded pilot project run by the Poynter Institute. This column is edited by Kelly McBride and copy edited by Lauren Klinger. The project is managed by Nicole Slaughter Graham with support from Amaris Castillo.