Bob Bonner, publisher of the Newsletter Journal, said his local paper has adopted artificial intelligence to handle repetitive tasks and improve workflow while retaining human oversight.

"If the machine can do as good as you or close to as good as you and it frees you up to do other more important things, then I think you gotta rethink that," Bonner said on the Top of Maine podcast. He described an AI statement the paper publishes weekly that explains the newsroom is "exploring this technology" and that AI must be "run by a person."

Bonner said AI handles formatting, AP-style checks and routine editing tasks that previously consumed staff time. Alexis Barker, news editor, described the tool as "more of an assistant" that completes repetitive tasks such as formatting questionnaires and trimming routine edits so reporters can focus on reporting and follow-up questions.

The paper uses a four-stage human review process — writer, copy editor (Bonner said his mother does copy editing), publisher edit and a final proofreader — and runs AI edits in addition to those human checks. Bonner said that combination has caught mistakes and reduced time on routine edits, allowing editors to spend more time asking sources deeper questions.

In sports coverage, Bonner said the newsroom created a custom GPT to store season statistics and draft game stories. "It takes about 15 minutes back and forth," he said of the human-AI editing loop, compared with what he described as a 30-minute manual process previously. He said the change helped keep sports coverage alive even as advertising and sponsorship revenue declined.

Bonner framed the newsroom’s use of AI as a survival measure for a small rural paper: he noted several Wyoming papers closed this year and said the Newsletter Journal has launched a nonprofit fund and used AI to speed grant writing and campaign work. He encouraged transparency about how AI is used and invited the community to see demonstrations at upcoming workshops.

The hosts emphasized that the newsroom instructs AI to use only the verified information the staff supplies and not to pull unvetted content from the open web. Bonner said the paper trains its AI and that editors still make final decisions on published copy.

The Newsletter Journal plans to continue experimenting with AI while keeping human editors in the loop and to share its approach with community members who are interested in how the tools work.