Local journalism usually relies on teams of reporters, editors, and support staff. We simply do not have those resources. As a result, we use modern technology — including large language model (LLM) tools — to help us produce articles that would otherwise be impossible to publish with our limited capacity.
LLM tools are essentially advanced writing assistants. They can help summarize documents, structure information, and generate early drafts. Many organizations use them for tasks like drafting reports, summarizing research, or preparing written communications.
Technology as a Force Multiplier
Local government generates a large amount of information: council meetings, reports, agendas, planning documents, financial updates, and policy discussions. Processing all of that material takes time.
LLM tools allow us to:
- summarize long documents
- structure information into readable articles
- draft initial text more quickly
- focus human attention on fact-checking, analysis, and editing
In other words, the LLM technology helps us handle the mechanical parts of writing so that we can focus on the substance. This approach allows a very small operation to cover more local issues than would otherwise be possible.
Human Oversight Still Matters
Using these tools does not mean publishing machine-generated text blindly. LLMs can make mistakes and require careful review.
Every article still involves human judgment — selecting topics, verifying facts, editing language, and deciding what matters to our community. The tools assist the process, but they do not replace editorial responsibility.
If We Had the Resources, We Would Use People
If Strong Richmond Hill had the funding, staff, or volunteers that traditional newsrooms rely on, we would gladly use those human resources instead of automation. The reality is that hyper-local coverage is difficult to sustain financially. Many communities have lost local journalism entirely because the traditional model no longer supports it. Using technology allows us to continue publishing and keep local issues visible, even without the staff that a conventional newsroom would require.
Transparency
We believe it is important to be transparent about how we work. That is why we openly state that we sometimes use LLM tools as part of the writing process.
Our goal is not to replace human journalism, but to use available tools to make a small civic-minded project sustainable. Without them, much of this coverage simply would not exist.