Interview: Jenny Romano & The Newsroom

The interview with Jenny Romano, co-founder of The Newsroom from Portugal.

The Newsroom is ackling misinformation and filter bubbles in news consumption, The Newsroom leverages AI-powered technology to promote informed discourse and critical thinking.

You can listen to the episode with Jenny Romano in EmpoWomen Podcast on Spotify:

Or read the interview.

Pitching The Newsroom

The Newsroom is focused on promoting a better-informed society by addressing misinformation and breaking through filter bubbles.

We do this by working directly with journalists, equipping them with tools to identify accurate information and bring in diverse perspectives. These perspectives are then validated from a factual standpoint. Essentially, we use AI to triangulate information at scale, empowering the people who deliver the news every day.

How Everything Started

Both my co-founder and I are very passionate about news, and we were both working in technology before The Newsroom was founded. I was working in the sales department at Google, while he was a data scientist at LinkedIn.

We were both engaged with information in different ways—one in how people share and consume information on major social media platforms, and the other in how that information is monetized. For years, we had been discussing the issue of misinformation, and then COVID-19 arrived.

The pandemic served as a wake-up call for us. On one hand, it pushed us to take action and start what we had been planning. On the other hand, it highlighted just how dangerous misinformation can be. These factors created a sense of urgency and pushed us to turn our discussions into a startup.

Thus, by the end of 2020, The Newsroom was born. COVID-19 effectively catalyzed the creation of the company.

How Big Is the Problem of Disinformation

Misinformation needs to be understood in context. The news industry is facing a massive crisis, which is not solely due to misinformation but is significantly influenced by it. A key indicator of this crisis is the level of trust in the news, which has been plummeting globally. Currently, less than 40 percent of people worldwide trust the news. When trust in the information we consume erodes, it undermines our confidence in many aspects of our surroundings.

Misinformation is not the only factor behind the decline in trust, but it is a major driver. With the advent of AI, we’re witnessing a rise in AI-generated misinformation and a corresponding increase in public skepticism. People often assume content is AI-generated and dismiss it, even when it is not.

This issue extends beyond just the consumption of misinformation. It also involves the heightened skepticism that misinformation fosters, leading people to distrust even reliable sources. This creates a negative cycle where skepticism undermines trust in all information, including trustworthy sources.

Top Topics in Misinformation

When The Newsroom started, it was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, making health a major focus at that time.

In addition to health, we have been proactively monitoring climate and geopolitics, including both international and local politics. Fortunately, COVID-19 is no longer as urgent a problem as it was in 2020, so health-related misinformation has decreased in prominence. However, climate and political issues continue to be significant.

These topics are highly prone to misinformation and can be very dangerous. In the context of political environments or climate change denial, believing false information can have serious consequences. For journalists, the challenge of validating vast amounts of information is increasingly difficult, which in turn affects all of us as readers.

The Technology Behind The Newsroom

Our technology is designed to assist journalists by providing tools to research, validate, and present diverse perspectives on the news they produce.

Initially, we worked directly with readers, but over the past few months, we have shifted to working closely with news outlets. Our technology empowers journalists by helping them triangulate information efficiently.

The “Secret Sauce”

The core of our technology is its ability to rapidly triangulate information. To explain it simply: imagine you’re a journalist researching a story. You start by examining what is being said globally and identifying relevant clusters of information. Our technology does exactly that by monitoring thousands of sources and highlighting interesting stories.

Once you choose a story to write about, our technology helps by gathering various perspectives and factual information. For instance, if you’re covering a climate-related topic, we aggregate and analyze sources such as scientific papers, commentary pieces, and news articles. We then identify consensus elements and different perspectives across these sources.

Not all perspectives are equally reliable. Our technology assesses the quality of each perspective by validating it against multiple sources. For example, if ten reputable scientific publications support a certain climate perspective, our system rates it as higher quality compared to a personal blog post.

Our technology scores and monitors the trustworthiness of sources, a system we’ve developed over the past four years. By automating much of the triangulation process, we help journalists quickly identify consensus, perspectives, and reliable sources, thereby streamlining their work and improving the accuracy of the news.

In summary, our technology automates the validation and triangulation of information, making it easier for journalists to produce well-researched and balanced stories.

The Newsroom Team

Our core team consists of three people. I am the co-founder and CEO, with a background in B2B sales. Before starting The Newsroom, I worked at Google and, prior to that, in solution engineering at Salesforce. I focused on digital transformation projects for scale-ups across Southern Europe.

My co-founder, Pedro Pamplona Henriques, was a data scientist at LinkedIn, where he spent four and a half years working with extensive datasets and AI. He has single-handedly developed the entire AI infrastructure behind our technology.

Our first employee, Etienne, is a full-stack developer from France with about three years of experience. He is an incredibly talented and motivated developer, and we are thrilled to have him on our team. Etienne handles all front-end development and also assists Pedro with back-end tasks.

In summary, our core team includes myself managing the business aspects, Pedro focusing on the back-end development, and Etienne taking care of front-end development while supporting Pedro. This is our core team, combining a blend of expertise that forms the foundation of our success.

The Biggest Challenges for a Founder

When we started working with AI in 2020, it wasn’t as hot a topic as it is today. Now, AI is extremely prominent, and there’s a lot of excitement and anxiety surrounding it. One of the biggest challenges for The Newsroom, and for the industry at large, is managing this excitement and focusing on practical applications.

Our main task is to collaborate with organizations to identify the right use cases and workflows for AI, rather than just jumping on the latest tech trends. This is a broader issue in AI adoption—there’s a risk of either forcing AI into situations where it’s not needed or missing out on valuable opportunities where it could be beneficial.

For me as a founder, the key challenge is ensuring we apply AI to the right use cases and workflows. It’s crucial to avoid using technology for its own sake and to focus on where it can genuinely add value. Otherwise, we risk implementing solutions that don’t fit the intended purpose.

On a personal level, the past few months have been a period of rapid acceleration for us. With many new projects and responsibilities, my role has shifted to managing and integrating these efforts seamlessly. Balancing and prioritizing tasks, and learning to say no to things that don’t add immediate value, has been a significant challenge.

Despite these hurdles, I’m genuinely excited and energized by the process. It’s all part of the startup journey, and I’m thrilled with what we’re achieving. This energy and drive are what make the startup experience so rewarding.

Business Environment in Portugal for a Female Entrepreneur

I don’t think the business environment in Portugal is vastly different from other regions. However, there are some unique challenges. For example, I’ve had experiences where, after giving a presentation or speech, people tend to approach my co-founder, Pedro, who is Portuguese, rather than me.

This is partly due to the fact that while I do speak Portuguese, I usually conduct business in English. As a result, people often assume I don’t speak the language and default to Pedro. For anyone listening from Portugal, I do speak Portuguese—please feel free to approach me in Portuguese.

Aside from the language barrier, the challenges I face in Portugal are quite similar to those encountered elsewhere. There are elements of bias, which are not always intended to be negative but are still felt strongly. For instance, being perceived as a young woman in business can sometimes lead to assumptions and unnecessary complications.

This issue is not exclusive to Portugal; it’s prevalent across Europe. It highlights the need for a broader European conversation about how to collectively manage and address these biases. Empowering individuals to become entrepreneurs and found their own companies is crucial, and it’s important to acknowledge and confront these hidden biases.

The recurring issues — like being underestimated because of my gender or having my authority questioned compared to my male co-founder—are frustrating. While I can now laugh about these experiences, they initially affected my confidence significantly.

What the EmpoWomen Programme Brings to The Newsroom

I’ve participated in several programs in the past, but the beauty of EmpoWomen is its small, personal approach. This brings two key benefits. First, the program features a small cohort of entrepreneurs. We had an in-person kickoff at the beginning, which really bonded us. Every session fosters a strong sense of community. I genuinely care about the other participants, and I hope they feel the same way about me. This sense of community is a huge value add for me.

The program itself is very well structured. The weekly content, sessions, and mentorship are all excellently organized. Our program manager, Timi, is absolutely brilliant. There’s a lot of energy within the program, and Timi’s support is particularly noticeable. I don’t think this level of personalization would be possible in a larger program, where things can get diluted and less personalized.

For example, at the start of the program, we created a wish list of mentor profiles we’d like to have. It was clear that they thoroughly reviewed our lists, assessed who was in the network, and figured out how to add value. This kind of personalized attention is quite rare and not something to take for granted.

The community support and energy are invaluable. One of the most important things for a founder, regardless of gender or stage, is to find their tribe—people who you can be honest with, ask questions, offer help, and get help from. For women, this sense of belonging is especially strong. Even though we’re spread across different countries and industries in Europe, there’s a strong feeling of belonging. I know I can be completely honest with the other participants, whether I’m struggling or celebrating successes, and the same goes for the program coordinators.

This kind of support is truly precious, and I would definitely recommend the program.

Next Milestone for The Newsroom

We pivoted at the end of last year, and now we are in a phase where we are conducting pilots. These pilots are allowing us to fine-tune our use cases, enhance our technology, and improve our overall approach. We have early adopters on board, which is absolutely fantastic for us.

Looking ahead, what I hope for The Newsroom a year from now is to have significantly advanced our efforts. Specifically, I want to see how we’ve leveraged these pilots to bring more value to our clients and to enhance our internal processes. If, a year from now, I can look back and see substantial improvements and a more streamlined operation, I would be very happy.