About Our AI Desk

Government agencies across Beaver County produce a steady stream of public records: reports, releases, notices and filings. Taxpayers pay for these records. Too often, nobody reads them.

The BeaverCountian AI Desk exists to change that. Stories carrying the “BeaverCountian AI Desk” byline were drafted with the help of artificial intelligence and reviewed by a human journalist before a single word went live.

What the AI Desk Covers

The AI Desk handles routine reporting based on public records issued by government agencies. As we expand the records we monitor, the AI Desk’s coverage will grow with them.

Every AI Desk story is built from an official public record. The AI does not interview people, develop sources, attend meetings or conduct investigations. That work is done by a human reporter, and it carries a human byline.

How an AI Desk Story Gets Made

  1. We collect the record. New public records are gathered as the agencies release them.
  2. AI drafts the story. An AI tool (Claude, made by Anthropic) reads the record and drafts a news story following BeaverCountian.com’s editorial standards. Articles are saved as unpublished drafts. The AI cannot publish anything.
  3. A journalist reviews it. A human journalist checks each draft against the original record, corrects errors, edits for accuracy and fairness, and decides whether it runs at all.
  4. Only then is it published, under the AI Desk byline so readers always know how it was produced.

Our Rules

  • Clearly labeled. AI-assisted stories are never published under a human reporter’s name.
  • Human-approved. Nothing is published without a human journalist’s review.
  • Records, not rumors. AI Desk stories report what official records say, attributed to the agency that issued them.
  • Presumption of innocence. Crime reports never state guilt as fact. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

AI and Images

We sometimes use AI to create illustrations that accompany our stories. These images are illustrative only. We do not use AI to create photorealistic images, and we never use AI to recreate or depict real people, places or events as though they were photographed.

Why We Do It

BeaverCountian.com is an independent newsroom. Having AI handle the first draft of routine records means broader coverage of what our public agencies are doing, and more time for the investigative work we’re known for.

Spot a Mistake?

If you find an error in an AI Desk story, contact us. We correct mistakes promptly and note significant corrections on the story.