WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers, announced the seventeen news organisations participating in the second edition of a global series featuring eight catalysts across four regions. The intensive programme combines expert guidance with hands-on experience, equipping newsrooms with the knowledge and tools needed to drive strategic AI initiatives.
NEWSROOM AI CATALYST
The Newsroom AI Catalyst is an accelerator programme sponsored by OpenAI, the AI research and deployment company behind ChatGPT. FATHM, the London media lab and news consultancy, pilots the programme under the coaching of Fergus Bell, Tom Trewinnard and their team: “The Newsroom AI Catalyst is a peerless opportunity for newsrooms worldwide to take concrete steps toward harnessing AI’s transformative power to enhance their work. We’re thrilled to collaborate with WAN-IFRA and OpenAI”, said Bell and Trewinnard.
Topic experts and fellow publishers from various parts of the world contribute to the programme, offering guidance to the teams. The official kick-off of the second European catalyst took place in Lisbon on 14/15 of January 2025. Each participating publisher has assembled a multidisciplinary team for a 3-month accelerator programme.
Carsten Groß, CEO of Mediaholding South in Germany, considers participation in the program as “a fantastic opportunity to bring one of our ideas to life with a productivity boost. Additionally, we are training our teams further for our AI journey and can draw further inspiration for our AI roadmap through the strong network of all participating publishers.”
“It is a great opportunity to have access to training to understand how to implement AI in the newsroom with a transversal working group,” says Clara Soteras, Head of Innovation and Digital Strategy at AMIC in Spain. “When we think about AI and journalism, we think about how to develop technical parts, but what is essential is to create a product that provides value to the user and makes sense at a business level, taking advantage of the capabilities and opportunities of artificial intelligence. I am sure it will provide us with a fundamental work methodology, adding technical, commercial and digital strategy roles to develop a correct implementation of AI and create an interesting product for the audience.”
“Collaborating with other leading media companies as part of the AI Catalyst enables us to learn from each other, expand our knowledge, and jointly develop sustainable, responsible AI use cases for media companies. At the same time, we can also contribute to further developing the media industry in the digital age,” commented Felix Langenmayr, Head of Business Transformation at 20minuten in Switzerland.
And Julia Onyshchenko Christensen, Customer and Product Director at Det Nordjyske Mediehus in Denmark, sees her team “driven by a clear ambition: to explore and embrace the transformative potential of AI in reshaping the future of regional journalism. AI offers us unparalleled opportunities to enhance the way we process and analyse vast amounts of information, empowering us to deliver more relevant, timely, and insightful content in the context of our region.” “We aim to accelerate our ability to harness AI not only to improve our internal workflows but also to innovate in areas such as citizen journalism and user-generated content, making the news ecosystem more inclusive and participatory,” she added.
The first European Catalyst saw 16 teams from 10 countries develop AI-related prototypes for their newsrooms. The list of projects included an archive search assistant, an AI-automated context tool for the writing process, a text-to-podcast tool, an AI-powered workflow that posts and drafts content into a CMS and an AI proofreading tool. Other initiatives of the first cohort were an AI tool for parsing and embedding documents, a chatbot for planning activities on the weekend, an AI engine to query data and an AI assistant for the editorial process. The teams also made considerable progress in building a web-to-print assistant, an AI guide for an annual cultural program, an AI search assistant for readers, a tool for shortening texts and an AI-based web and SEO optimization.
“The range of ideas for projects in the first catalyst was mind-blowing,” said Martin Fröhlich, director of the Digital Network at WAN-IFRA. “It shows that the publishers are ready and inspired to seize the opportunities of Artificial Intelligence to improve their workflows and products.”
17 news organisations participate in the second Newsroom AI Catalyst Europe
20 minuten (Switzerland)
AMIC – L’Associació de Mitjans d’Informació i Comunicació (Spain)
ARA (Spain)
Deco pro Teste (Portugal)
La Depeche du Midi (France)
Det Nordjyske Mediehus (Denmark)
EBRA Groupe (France)
Impresa (Portugal)
Interia Group (Poland)
El Nacional (Spain)
Neue Westfälische Zeitung (Germany)
OUR Media (Slovakia)
Le Quotidien Jurasien (Switzerland)
SH:Z (Germany)
SWMH – Sued West Media Holding (Germany)
Saarbrücker Zeitung / Trierischerer Volksfreund / Bonner Generalanzeiger (Germany)
Vocento (Spain)
Timeline 2025
January: Call for applications in South Asia and Latin America. Second accelerator starts in Europe.
March to May: Completion of the second accelerator in Europe and first in South Asia and Latin America.
June: Call for applications for a second accelerator in Asia Pacific, South Asia and Latin America.
August: Selection and notification of participants.
September to November: Completion of the second accelerator in Asia Pacific, South Asia and Latin America.
