NotebookLM increases efficiency at Vía País, results in traffic growth

By Gabriel Pérez

Editor-in-Chief

VíaPaís

Argentina

At Vía País, we were pioneers in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Since the first version of ChatGPT was launched in 2022, we have incorporated tools to become more productive, effective, and agile in providing quality content to our audience.

We have never approached AI as a replacement for a journalist's work but rather embraced the idea of having a "co-pilot" to facilitate a writer's tasks.

Media companies like Vía País that have adopted AI tools into their practices have found they increase efficiency but human oversight is still essential.

Currently, one of the platforms we are using is NotebookLM. It is a highly useful tool for journalists, as it offers features that can enhance efficiency and accuracy, particularly in investigations. We see this tool as having enormous potential.

How we use NotebookLM

NotebookLM can perform many tasks. Some of these tasks include the following:

• Information analysis: NotebookLM can analyse large amounts of information, including notes, transcripts, documents, and books. The capacity to process information can help identify patterns, trends, and connections that might otherwise go unnoticed. For example, two new decrees from the Official Gazette can be analysed in minutes with summaries and key points provided.
• Summary generation: The tool can generate summaries of lengthy documents, enabling journalists to quickly grasp key information. This is particularly useful when working under tight deadlines or with a large volume of material.
• Data organisation: NotebookLM can help organise complex data into practical formats, such as FAQs, executive summaries, and study guides. It can even create bullet points for journalistic notes. This facilitates understanding and analysis of the information and can be invaluable for creating articles and reports. For instance, by including a page from Booking.com, it analyses prices for a specific location. This is especially important for Vía País, as we produce hyper-local content for several provinces in Argentina.
• Interaction with documents: Our journalists can interact with uploaded documents through a chat feature, allowing them to ask specific questions about the content and receive precise answers based on the provided information.
• Prevention of hallucinations: This is a key feature of AI. NotebookLM only interacts with the provided texts, meaning its responses are solely based on real information, and it avoids fabricating data, commonly referred to as AI hallucinations. Currently, it also supports uploading audio, video, and PDF files. Additionally, it can generate a podcast in Spanish summarising the topic at hand.

Results

The major challenge as chief editors is using these tools to inspire our writers rather than creating dependency. We are aware of the high likelihood of relying on AI and letting it do all the work. For this reason, the content we generate with NotebookLM is not automatically published and undergoes a review by our editing team.

Furthermore, we know Google does not recommend the practice of automatically generating content with AI.

However, since we started using this tool, we have recorded an average 25% increase in the number of news articles published by a writer and a 12% growth in organic traffic. Additionally, it allows us to maintain a steady flow of published news during holiday seasons or on public holidays by creating evergreen content based on our metrics.

YOU MUST BE A MEMBER TO ACCESS THIS CONTENT

Become An INMA Member or Log In

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

About Gabriel Pérez

Gabriel Pérez is editor-in-chief at VíaPaís in Argentina. Gabriel can be reached at [email protected].

Related Articles