At the Cedar Valley Sentinel, we embrace technology to enhance our reporting while staying true to our journalistic values of accuracy, integrity, and community service.
We use artificial intelligence (AI) tools in limited, transparent ways to support our editorial process. These tools help us improve the efficiency of our newsroom—but every story published is reviewed by a human editor.
How We Use AI
AI may assist our team in the following ways:
- Grammar and Spell Checking: Improving readability and clarity
- Background Research: Finding context, facts, and references to support a story
- First Draft Creation: Assisting in drafting initial versions of articles, especially for routine or data-heavy reports
What AI Doesn’t Do
AI does not make editorial decisions, conduct interviews, replace local sources, or publish content on its own. Every article goes through human review and editing before it is published.
Editorial Oversight
All final content decisions are made by our Editor-in-Chief, Mike Kieffer, and the editorial team. We are committed to verifying facts, ensuring local relevance, and maintaining ethical standards in all reporting—regardless of the tools used to create it.
Why We Use AI
We use AI tools to increase our capacity to cover local news efficiently and with care. This is especially helpful for:
- Drafting sports recaps and public notices
- Converting raw alerts into readable updates
- Researching background for ongoing stories
AI helps us focus more time on human-centered reporting: attending events, interviewing residents, and building community connections.
Transparency
Articles that have received AI assistance will include the following tag at the bottom:
This article was assisted by AI and reviewed by the editor prior to publication.
We believe in being upfront with our readers, and we welcome your feedback.