Reading: How the Minnesota Star Tribune used AI to bolster its shoe-leather reporting to background a mass shooter

Poynter:

As many of our journalists were trying to process the comments and actions taking place in the video, Chiueh took screenshots of the journal pages and uploaded the data into ChatGPT. Her first request was to identify the language.

AI’s answer: Faux Cyrillic, a Russian typography that directly translates English words.The next step was to see if the AI could translate the words on the page. It was no easy task. Initially, Chiueh paused the video, screenshotted each page and then uploaded the screenshots into ChatGPT. (She later wrote a computer script that pulled the data when the pages turned.)

The AI’s translation showed writings that glorified mass murderers, fixated on school shootings like Sandy Hook and Columbine and obsessed over guns.

How the Minnesota Star Tribune used AI to bolster its shoe-leather reporting to background a mass shooter - Poynter

A team of journalists relentlessly tracked the shooter’s digital and paper trail. But AI provided deeper insight into her thoughts before the shooting.