Legit.ng Wins WAN-IFRA’s 2025 Award for Best Use of AI in the Newsroom

…Bridging Cultures and Breaking Barriers With the Power of AI

Legit.ng Wins WAN-IFRA’s 2025 Award for Best Use of AI successful the Newsroom
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• Legit.ng won the “Best Use of AI successful the Newsroom” grant astatine the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Awards Africa 2025 for its innovative project, Hausa AI News, which leverages AI to nutrient and heighten quality contented successful the Hausa language.
• The task led to important editorial and assemblage growth, including an 18% summation successful leafage views, a 55% emergence successful idiosyncratic engagement, and a 6% boost successful Hausa-language communicative output wrong its archetypal month.
• WAN-IFRA praised Legit.ng’s liable and inclusive usage of AI, with editorial enactment reaffirming their committedness to ethical AI implementation that amplifies indigenous voices without replacing quality journalists.

In a twelvemonth marked by accelerated improvement successful integer journalism, Legit.ng, Nigeria’s starring integer quality organization, has emerged arsenic a trailblazer, clinching the Best Use of AI successful the Newsroom award astatine the renowned Digital Media Awards Africa 2025, hosted by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The winning initiative, titled “Hausa AI News: Amplifying Indigenous Voices with Technology,” is a bold measurement successful tackling a longstanding situation successful Nigerian media—the underrepresentation of indigenous languages. At the bosom of the task lies a almighty idea: What if AI could not lone velocity up journalism but besides assistance underserved communities entree reliable, applicable quality successful their autochthonal tongue?

Giving Hausa a Digital Voice

In June 2024, Legit.ng launched an AI-powered newsroom cognition focused connected producing high-quality quality contented successful Hausa, 1 of Africa’s astir wide spoken indigenous languages. Through a operation of instrumentality translation, AI-assisted fact-checking, and editorial oversight, the level dramatically chopped accumulation time—from 1 hr per nonfiction to conscionable 30 minutes—while expanding contented output and readership.

“This task is not lone astir efficiency; it is besides astir access. It addresses respect for language, culture, and identity,” said Rahaman Abiola, Legit.ng’s Editor-in-Chief. “We wanted to amusement that AI can bash much than conscionable automate. It tin amplify the voices that person agelong been wide near retired of the integer conversation. This grant is simply a triumph for each Hausa-speaking idiosyncratic who deserves prime journalism successful their ain language.”

The Power of Ethical AI

WAN-IFRA’s assemblage praised the task for its liable and human-centered implementation of AI, noting that Legit.ng ensured AI "does not regenerate journalists but, instead, enables them to service radical successful much ways." From debunking fake predetermination quality successful existent clip to crafting culturally close translations, the inaugural has acceptable a caller benchmark successful utilizing AI not conscionable arsenic a tool, but arsenic a newsroom ally.

Rocío Valderrábano, WAN-IFRA’s Digital Revenue Network Project Manager, extended her congratulations connected behalf of the WAN-IFRA team, saying:

“Legit.ng’s enactment and dedication person genuinely amazed us. This designation highlights your work's quality, innovation, and interaction wrong the quality media industry. We look guardant to seeing much from Legit.ng successful the years ahead.”

A New Chapter successful Journalism

In summation to improving contented accumulation and accuracy, the inaugural led to a 6% maturation successful Hausa communicative output within its archetypal period of launch, an 18% summation successful leafage views, and a 55% emergence successful idiosyncratic engagement time, further proving that readers are not lone bare for news, but they’re besides bare for quality that reflects their voice.

Speaking connected the strategical imaginativeness down the project, Felix Imoh, Legit.ng’s Public Relations Manager, shared:

“There is often a temptation to spot AI arsenic a menace to journalism. But astatine Legit.ng, we spot it differently. We spot AI arsenic a bridge, 1 that connects our newsroom to the radical we serve, particularly those who person been ignored for excessively long. Winning this grant tells america we’re connected the close path, and we’re conscionable getting started.”

This designation by WAN-IFRA positions Legit.ng astatine the forefront of AI innovation successful African journalism and sets a almighty illustration for however section media tin responsibly clasp cutting-edge exertion portion uplifting marginalized voices. As Legit.ng celebrates this milestone, it besides reaffirms its committedness to ethical journalism, inclusive innovation, and the powerfulness of exertion to archer stories that substance successful each language.

About WAN-IFRA:

The World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) is simply a planetary enactment of quality publishers representing much than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites, and implicit 3,000 organizations successful implicit 120 countries. Its Digital Media Awards admit the champion integer innovation crossed newsrooms astir the world.

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Source: Legit.ng