Journalism Student Picks for Effective AI Tools
Jan. 21, 2025
Editor’s note: Like many of you, I’m spending more of my social media time on Bluesky at Mikereilley.bsky.social. Follow me there for more tips and tricks. I’ll remain on X/Twitter but will be spending more time on Bluesky.
I created and taught my first AI Journalism class last fall at UIC, and one of the assignments was for students to present an AI-driven tool that they use journalistically or for schoolwork.
The presentations were short — about five minutes — and they didn’t disappoint. Here are some of the gems they presented, which are worth a download or bookmark:
Notebook LM: Samantha Amaro presented this versatile Google tool that generates podcasts, FAQs, summaries and much more. The student used this heavily throughout the semester. on their midterm and final projects. We were impressed with the podcast quality as well as the accuracy of the FAQ’s generated off their work. I’m trying to get the Google Cloud-based advanced Notebook LM to use this semester.
ChatPDF.com Taeya Borek showed us how she used this tool to study for a midterm exam in one of my other classes. She converted my midterm study guide into a PDF, loaded it into this tool and quizzed it to check her answers. Clever. We also loaded some small datasets into ChatPDF later in the semester to analyze the data. We had mixed results, but it could accurately answer most basic questions from spreadsheets converted to PDFs.
PaperGuide: Kyra Theodore loaded one of her father’s academic papers into PaperGuide to have it summarize and simplify the prose. It did a great job with the 41-page PDF. And trolling your dad’s writing in my class earns extra credit points. Lol.
CamScanner: Reece Lawler showed us the Swiss Army knife of scanner tools. I’m switching from Scanner Pro to CamScanner as my go to mobile app scanner based on all the free AI features he showed us.
Adobe Marketo Suite: This is a powerful automation and marketing analysis tool that Mina Ahmed used on a previous internship.
EssayGrader: Brady Bauer shared this tool that evaluates your writing and offers suggestions, but doesn’t actually edit the writing. This is similar to a Hemingway.app tool I use to evaluate my editing as I grade papers. Along the same lines, classmate Will Flanigan demonstrated the free version of Quillbot, which you can use to paraphrase small blocks of text, among other editing tools, both paid and free.
Liner — Michael Vitellaro uses this slick, free research tool to find material for class assignments and journalism projects. Its interface reminds me a bit of Perplexity, and it shows some well-organized and useful results. It has paid upgrades but the base version provides much of what we need it to do.
Character.ai: Stella Delatorre demonstrated this one early in the semester, creating audio chatbots and then “interviewed” them. Her chats with Trump, Sean Combs (by a student’s request) and others. We talked about the ethics of creating a persona of a real person and also ways we could use it journalistically. A few weeks later, we discussed a lawsuit filed against Character.ai over a teen’s suicide.
Video Tools
CapCut AI caption creator: Julissa Cahue showed us how to build quick social media videos with this AI offshoot of CapCut’s excellent video editing app. Along the same lines, Effy Carraman shared Predis AI, which helps you create social media videos from prompts and published stories, then share directly to social. It even allows you to schedule the posts, like Buffer or Hootsuite.
Terrick Thompson-Allen had some fun with his video editing tool, Viggle. He showed how to edit a person into another video scene (yes, we discussed deepfakes and ethics here) when he edited Donald Trump into Freddie Freeman’s role from Freeman’s thrilling home run that won Game 1 of the World Series. This is a fun tool to play with, but it can be dangerous if used with news footage or misrepresented as factual.
Audio Tools
College students love music, and we had no shortage of AI music mixing apps and desktop tools. Sean Carlin showed his MixonSet - is an iOS app that lets you connect APIs from Spotify and other music playlists to build new mixes.
Neil Boie shared his Spotify AI DJ feature in his phone app to build new playlists automatically. Luis Garcia showed Fadr’s clean interface that let’s you mix and layer audio right in your browser.
Video
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Sponsor
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New in AI and other tools:
Particle
Better understand news stories through summaries, explanations, and interactive Q&AsKoncile
Customizable OCR for data extractionDashbreeze
Create data dashboardsHubspot AI Search Grader
Analyze your site’s visibility on AI search engines. Free tool.SolidPoint
Summarizes lengthy videos using AI
Video
Learn how to use Napkin.ai, a free tool that creates graphics through text.
Become a sponsor: Would you like to sponsor future Journalist’s Toolbox™ newsletters? Our rates are reasonable and our sponsors get results. Contact me at mikereilley1 [at] gmail [dot] com
Textbooks
The Journalist’s Toolbox
My new book, “The Journalist’s Toolbox A Guide to Digital Reporting and AI” was published by Routledge in December. You can order it here,
Data + Journalism
Samantha Sunne and I co-authored a textbook, “Data + Journalism” that’s available now on Routledge. (Order here). It’s an introductory- to intermediate-level guide to learning data storytelling from A to Z.
In Quotes …
“Think of AI this way: When we invented the ship, we also created the shipwreck. When we invented the car, we also invented the car crash.” — Several conference speakers I’ve heard in the past two years.
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Excellent edition Mark. Full of useful resources. Keep it up!
Thanks Mike. Very helpful article.