Introducing South Shore News: Bridging the Local News Gap with AI-Assisted Coverage

Service beginning in 18 south shore towns

I'm excited to announce the launch of SouthShore.news – an innovative service designed to keep south shore residents informed about their communities through generative AI-assisted coverage of municipal meetings.

The Idea

Over the past six months, I've been quietly developing and testing a new approach to local news coverage. The goal is simple: use artificial intelligence to turn recordings of local government meetings into accessible, informative email newsletters. While AI generates the initial drafts, every article gets a human review and edit before publication. So far by me.

Why Now?

So much of what comes to identify our towns gets decided at easily ignored public meetings. At this moment south shore communities face a number of critical decisions that risk going under covered:

• MBTA Communities Compliance: Towns are grappling with zoning decisions that force a choice between complying with state law and allowing multifamily housing by right in at least one zone, or rejecting the law risking a huge number of state grants and putting their hopes in an ongoing legal challenge.

• Fiscal Pressures: The upcoming expiration of ARPA and ESSER funds coincides with operating budgets already straining to maintain level services within the limits of Proposition 2 1/2.

• Important Ballot Votes Ahead: Nine towns are getting ready to collectively vote on a new South Shore Technical High School building project.  Several communities are considering operational overrides, and others debt exclusion questions. 

• Routine Decisions: This time of year our communities are setting the tax rates, deciding whether and how much to charge residents for solid waste disposal, and funding capital projects at Special Town Meetings.

For residents to make informed decisions about these, they need a source of information. However, traditional local news resources are increasingly stretched thin – where they exist at all. Generative AI, on the other hand, has come a long way and can now be a useful tool to fill in these gaps.

A Complement, Not a Replacement

My service on Whitman's Select Board has given me a solid perspective on the importance of local journalism. I've witnessed firsthand how critical accurate, detailed reporting is for informed civic engagement. I’ve been sharing Whitman-Hanson Express articles and local public safety press releases in monthly blog posts to keep Whitman residents up to date. South Shore News isn't intended to replace existing news outlets, our goal is to complement them. We’ll do that by:

• Focusing on Routine Coverage: By handling regular meeting coverage through AI assistance, we help ensure that routine but important municipal decisions don't go unnoticed. We’re starting with Select Board and School Committee meetings, but you’ll see us add other meetings of public interest as warranted.

• Inspire Additional Reporting: This coverage model frees up professional journalists to focus on investigative reporting and in-depth stories that require extensive research and interviews. These AI tools are great at summarizing discussion and votes taken in a single meeting, but journalists are still needed to dig deeper.

• Expanded Geographic Coverage: We currently cover 18 South Shore communities, helping to fill gaps where traditional coverage might be limited, and helping to keep you informed about neighboring communities that might be facing similar challenges.

The Technology Behind It

South Shore News uses generative AI to process recordings of local cable access meetings into a transcript. That transcript is then analyzed for potential angles for a local news story. When an angle is identified, a brief story is then generated and edited by a human.

That human has been me. I’m looking for accuracy, context and nuance, proper framing of the issues, and probably most commonly just identifying speakers and the names of Superintendents and Public Safety Chiefs. I then schedule the post in Substack.

Supporting Local Journalism

I strongly encourage everyone to support our established, locally owned, independent news partners: Whitman-Hanson Express, Plympton-Halifax-Kingston Express, Duxbury Clipper, Plymouth Independent, Cohasset and Hingham Anchor, Hull Times, Abington News, and WATD. And please let me know if I’m missing any.

These publications provide invaluable in-depth coverage and investigative reporting that keeps municipal leaders honest, and prepares our citizens for Town Meetings and municipal elections. I intend to reach out to them to see how we might work together.

Try it

South Shore News is currently available free of charge while in development. I invite you to visit SouthShore.news to subscribe and provide feedback. If you find this valuable, please share with your friends and local public officials. And please notify me if you see any inaccuracies. Lately the AI keeps trying to insert retired individuals back into their old roles.

Who am I 

I’m Justin Evans, a two term Select Board member in Whitman. Over six years I’ve gotten to know several of these communities, and over the past six months I’ve learned quite a bit about all of them developing this resource.

Consider this my disclosure. I still serve on Whitman’s Select Board, however I will work to provide impartial coverage of my meetings when I edit those articles and I’ll include a disclosure at the end of every Whitman Select Board article.