News 12 Networks and Google News Initiative Partner on AI Solution
News 12 Networks and Google News Initiative Partner on AI Solution to Create Automated Content Destinations for Local Media Companies
News 12 Deploys New Solution to Launch News 12 Spark, a New Lifestyle Vertical For Millennials
May 12, 2021 – New York, NY – Today News 12 Networks, in partnership with the Google News Initiative (GNI), announces a new AI solution that creates automated content destinations for local media companies. Through a machine learning and audience intelligence engine (ML/AI), this solution utilizes Google tags and a network’s existing news content to seamlessly curate news stories and content into specific verticals, giving publishers who want to innovate, but have limited resources, the ability to easily create thematic and audience-driven pages.
“As a leader in local news with a robust web presence and audience, News 12 knows how important it is for media outlets to offer a user-friendly online destination where viewers can access the local news stories that help inform their daily lives,” said Jon Steinberg, President, News & Advertising, Altice USA. “We also, however, know how time and resource intensive it can be to build and maintain an engaging online presence. By partnering with the Google News Initiative team, we were able to build a new tool that allows local media companies like ours to quickly identify, tag and surface local news content in a more efficient and effective manner. News 12 is proud to work with Google to share how we developed this completely automated solution with other local news outlets to create greater engagement and faster news delivery in the most efficient way possible.”
As an example of the tool in action, News 12 has used the technology to launch News 12 Spark (https://spark.news12.com/), a site that captures content from the network’s seven regions across the New York tri-state area and curates those stories into a lifestyle vertical for the younger generation of News 12 viewers. News 12 aims to scale this tool further throughout its organization and, with the help of GNI, share widely among their partners and peers for further adoption and implementation within the industry.
"As newsrooms explore more efficient ways to reach new audiences, partnering with Altice News to develop an AI-based curation solution not only aligns with the GNI's mission of helping publishers create more sustainable business models to support the inevitable transition to digital, but will also serve as a viable solution for other newsrooms across the globe," said Peter Dolchin, Americas Partnerships Solutions, Google.
News 12 has created a Playbook and video demonstration of this tool in action to show how other media companies can adopt the technology and implement it across their organizations:
About GNI
The Google News Initiative (GNI) is Google’s effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age and signifies a major milestone in the company’s 15-year commitment to the news industry. The GNI brings together everything we do in collaboration with news publishers and the ecosystem – across products, partnerships, and programs – to help build a stronger future for news. The GNI will fuel these efforts with a $300m commitment focused on three objectives: elevate and strengthen quality journalism, evolve business models to drive sustainable growth and empower news organizations through technological innovation.
About News 12
News 12 is the preeminent hyperlocal news service dedicated to bringing residents of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Connecticut, Hudson Valley, Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester the best hyperlocal news, traffic, weather, sports and more. News 12 also offers five News 12+ traffic and weather channels and News 12 New York, a digital network featuring the top stories, events and more from the tri-state area, available on a variety of OTT platforms and News 12’s YouTube channel.
News 12, owned and operated by Altice USA, is part of the Altice News group, which also includes national and business news from Cheddar News and the global and current affairs network i24 NEWS.
For more on News 12, visit News12.com.