Harnessing digital creativity to support original journalism

Professor Neil Maiden, Professor of Digital Creativity at the Business School (formerly Cass) has launched a new product to help journalists discover new and reliable information and story leads more efficiently.

INJECT, an add-on for text editors, supports journalists in finding relevant sources and discovering new angles to stories they are working on. It was created with the purpose of making creative writing more insightful and less time-consuming.

Professor Maiden designed the product with the consultation of leading journalists and discussed the importance of easy-to-access factual information in the cover article for this month’s Communications for the ACM magazine. He said that digital tools to proactively support excellent journalism were all too rare.

“Social media and the rise of ‘fake news’ has increased the challenge journalists face to produce accurate, insightful and timely news stories,” he said.

“Discovering verified news and scientific content to provide reliable yet creative journalism requires products that are based on valid news sources.

“INJECT recognises the time constraints that journalists are under, particularly at a time where news organisations are cutting staff numbers and costs. It guides them towards verified sources of information, as well as helping them uncover possible new angles.

“We developed INJECT with key values in mind, having worked with journalists themselves.

“The results and feedback we’ve had from journalists who have used INJECT has been very positive, and we’re looking forward to seeing it develop.”

The Business School has also launched the JECT.AI startup, which will sell and develop the product.

Watch a video presentation by Professor Maiden discussing INJECT’s aims and how it works in further detail.