• by Ray Schultz , June 25, 2024

Hearst’s DevHub, a service that helps newsrooms publish interactive stories without engineering support, is expanding its journalistic footprint and has made a new hire.  

DevHub serves as Hearst Newspapers’ editorial engineering, unit, also supporting data journalism and content strategy. It has embraced the use of large language models for outside projects like San Francisco Chronicle’s Chowbot, a restaurant recommendation engine, and Emcee, a tool that generates quizzes for readers, built on reported, edited and vetted stories. 

In addition, DevHub works with teams at the San Francisco Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, Houston Chronicle, (Albany) Times Union and newsrooms across Connecticut, Illinois, Texas and Michigan. It also helps newsrooms build live results sites like the Texas Heat Tracker and California Fire Tracker,

In the most recent development, DevHub has appointed Tazbia Fatima as a newsroom AI and automation engineer focused on building news tools and reader experiences.

Previously, Fatima served as an AI and data fellow at The City, a nonprofit New York newsroom where she experimented with generative AI.  

“Tazbia’s thoughtfulness on best practices for AI in journalism and her experience with generative AI at The City make her a great fit to work with our local newsrooms,” says Brittany Schell, the DevHub’s director of newsroom projects and operations. “Tazbia’s skills will enhance our capabilities with AI and computational journalism. We’re so excited to have her join the team.”