Local newspapers have faced declining readership and advertising revenues, alongside growing skepticism from audiences with migration backgrounds. This undermines local journalism’s democratic role. To address this, we conducted a participatory Design Thinking (DT) project with a German regional newsroom to develop a low-fidelity prototype of a responsible AI tool to improve engagement with migrant audiences. Two focus groups with individuals from immigrant backgrounds informed five DT workshops with newsroom staff and community partners, following the Stanford d.school framework. The resulting prototype includes three dashboards for topic selection, editorial support, and post publication feedback. Guided by a value-sensitive design approach grounded in transparency, engagement with audience perspectives, and responsive feedback mechanisms, this paper presents a practical solution for embedding responsible AI in local journalism workflows to support democratic and organizational sustainability.

Portugal, R., Eder, M., Thurman, N., & Haim, M. (9/2025). Responsible AI in Journalism: A Design Thinking Approach to Audience-Centered Topic Selection for Migrant Communities . Presented at the European Data & Computational Journalism Conference, Athen. (content_copy)