Márta Kovács, a Senior News Editor at the prominent Hungarian news portal 24.hu, has been appointed to lead the publication’s new five-person AI task force following her participation in the WAN-IFRA NextGen AI Leaders programme.
Founded in 2010 and owned by Central Médiacsoport Zrt., 24.hu operates with a newsroom of roughly 70 journalists and maintains a heavy focus on political coverage alongside culture, sports, and technology. The portal transitioned from an ad-supported model to a freemium subscription structure in 2024, placing an increased premium on in-depth, original reporting and efficient newsroom workflows.
Tracking Political Social Media Content
The impetus for the newsroom’s new AI tool stems from a modern reporting reality: politicians routinely make major announcements directly on social media platforms, creating a steady stream of content that requires constant monitoring by journalists. Kovács identified this administrative friction during the NextGen AI Leaders initiative, a mentoring project run by WAN-IFRA in partnership with the Google News Initiative designed to help young media professionals deploy AI responsibly.
Teaming up with an internal developer, Kovács built an AI-powered assistant designed to track public social media posts from political figures and cut down on routine monitoring tasks. A working group spanning all levels of the 24.hu editorial hierarchy provided continuous feedback throughout the development and testing phases, ensuring the technology matched daily newsroom requirements.
The primary developmental hurdle involved aligning the tool’s output precisely with editorial standards. All material generated or assisted by the software undergoes verification, editing, and final approval by a human journalist before publication, leaving ultimate editorial responsibility firmly with the newsroom.
Faster Reactions and Editorial Integration
While exact time savings remain difficult to quantify, Kovács noted that the tool has demonstrably accelerated the newsroom’s reaction time to breaking political developments. Following testing, the software has integrated into daily routines across the editorial team.
Petr Bednar, Chief Digital and Business Development Director at Central Médiacsoport Zrt., praised Kovács’s user-focused approach to leading the project. Bednar stated that the resulting tool successfully aids journalists in responding more rapidly to political events.
Kovács emphasized that building the technology around actual newsroom needs was critical to its acceptance. By involving reporters early in the creation phase, leadership was able to mitigate widespread anxieties surrounding automation and job security.
“AI is really frightening for a lot of people,” Kovács noted, explaining that introducing tools without proper context prompts immediate fears about employment. Addressing both the technological and human dimensions of the transition remains a core responsibility for project leaders.
Building on the work initiated during the WAN-IFRA programme, Kovács now oversees 24.hu's broader AI transformation strategy, helping the organization manage the evolving intersection of digital technology and daily journalism.
