The Duke Course Where Failing Is An Option

In the AI Journalism Lab, there is a trophy for most successful failure

A trophy that says "most successful failure"

This is a summary of a story by Matt LoJacono on Sanford School of Public Policy.

The AI Journalism Lab, a course at the Sanford School of Public Policy with professors Bill Adair and Tyler Dukes, suggests a different way of recognizing achievement.

A trophy for most successful failure was handed out at the semester’s end.

Adair and Dukes encouraged their students to examine artificial intelligence technology with questions and experimentation, with the goal of building something journalists could use in real-world newsrooms.

From the onset, the course’s syllabus informs students, “Failure IS an option. Some tools will work; others won’t. But you’ll learn from both.”

While some students who enrolled in the course had newsroom experience, others didn’t. They came from a variety of backgrounds: public policy, computer science and engineering. The result was different approaches to solve the same problems.

The classroom environment moved away from the traditional lecture structure and was more like a workshop. “They’re doing the thing,” Adair said during one class discussion. “There aren’t enough classes like that.”

The students partnered with journalists at local news outlets and asked: What takes up too much time in a journalist’s day? They then set out to solve the problem with AI.

One group built a newsletter aggregator to help The Ninth Street Journal review newsletters that arrived each morning in the newsroom inbox. Another group built a tool for an investigative reporter at WRAL that generates a daily summary of public records. The tool links to the original records, enabling WRAL reporters to verify the information.

A third team built a tool for INDY editors to help assemble their weekly calendar of events.

In the end, some tools needed more development. As the syllabus reminded students, “failure is an option.”

To find out more about AI Journalism Lab projects, visit the Sanford School of Public Policy.