News Machines

News Machines analyzes how news media in the U.S. and worldwide are innovating with AI. One new case study every week.

New posts

How a War-Zone Newsroom in Ukraine Uses AI To Listen

Jun 24, 2026

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7 min read

How a War-Zone Newsroom in Ukraine Uses AI To Listen

The Kyiv Independent employs machines to learn the needs of its paying members and sends humans where machines can’t go.

Ulrike Langer

Why a non-techie wrote one of the most useful AI guides for newsrooms

Jun 16, 2026

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6 min read

Why a non-techie wrote one of the most useful AI guides for newsrooms

A review of Martin Schori’s “AI in the Newsroom” — three years building and running Aftonbladet’s AI hub turned into a practical guide for curious journalists and newsroom leaders

Ulrike Langer

Why It’s Easy to Launch Speedboats and Hard to Bring Them Home

Jun 9, 2026

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7 min read

Why It’s Easy to Launch Speedboats and Hard to Bring Them Home

The Norwegian tabloidVG has systematized where to point AI down to one decimal place. But how innovation crosses back into the core newsroom still depends on a single person.

Ulrike Langer

How a small AI lab in Norway built a vibe-coding ladder for non-coding journalists

Polaris Media Vest gave reporters who can’t code a way to build interactive tools for readers — and a clear line between the throwaway widget and the service worth maintaining.

Ulrike Langer

Why the question of whether to license AI is harder than it looks

May 27, 2026

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6 min read

Why the question of whether to license AI is harder than it looks

Three key questions sit underneath it. None of them have settled answers yet.

Ulrike Langer

How Zetland wants to conquer Europe with journalism people trust and care about

May 19, 2026

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5 min read

How Zetland wants to conquer Europe with journalism people trust and care about

Legacy media has lost the plot on why readers should care. Zetland believes it has found a solution in the age of AI - and is now taking it across Europe. Germany is next.

Ulrike Langer

Reroute NJ: How a Pop-up Website Served 2,000 Commuters a Day

May 13, 2026

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5 min read

Reroute NJ: How a Pop-up Website Served 2,000 Commuters a Day

Built in a day, closed in a month: The case for ephemeral websites in journalism

Ulrike Langer

Local journalism doesn't have to be a charity case

May 5, 2026

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13 min read

Local journalism doesn't have to be a charity case

AI now makes a portfolio model possible for more newsrooms than ever. But senior editors have to run it.

Ulrike Langer

How Village Media is Building a Moat Against AI and Platforms

Apr 28, 2026

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6 min read

How Village Media is Building a Moat Against AI and Platforms

Richard Gingras on defending against scrapers, reporters as information gatherers and why licensing news to LLMs will not save news publishers

Ulrike Langer

How a German Startup Won The Atlantic for Its Translation Network

Apr 22, 2026

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5 min read

How a German Startup Won The Atlantic for Its Translation Network

Kompreno curates quality journalism in five languages and shares revenue with publishers

Ulrike Langer

How a 21-Year-Old Swede Competed with a 150-Year-Old Bonnier Paper - and Built a Product Doing It

Apr 15, 2026

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8 min read

How a 21-Year-Old Swede Competed with a 150-Year-Old Bonnier Paper - and Built a Product Doing It

Ahody started as an internal fix for a two-person newsroom. Now it’s a startup with paying customers, a publisher as an investor and plans to go global

Ulrike Langer