A climate news story has to be accurate, well sourced and, usually, ready by early afternoon. That is becoming harder for journalists to deliver. Disinformation crowds the information space, newsrooms have fewer specialist reporters as budgets shrink, and the evidence behind any climate topic is scattered across studies, legislation, data and public debate. At a time when society needs strong climate reporting more than ever, can technology help journalists meet this challenge?
To find out, our partner Verimpact turned to the people who face this pressure every day: journalists and content creators from Greece and Cyprus, who put NEUROCLIMA’s LENS and BOT tools through a real newsroom test. What they told us will shape how these tools evolve and how they can best serve climate reporting.
The NEUROCLIMA pilot brought together a diverse group of journalists and content creators from Greece and Cyprus who cover the environment, sustainability and science. The workshop did not just introduce the tools to the reporters. It asked participants to work with them as they would in a real newsroom.
One question, one story, one pitch
Instead of watching a demo, participants worked on a question any editor might assign: Is climate change impacting food security in Europe?
With LENS, they gathered the background evidence, data and sources needed for a news feature. Along the way, they discovered one of the Hub’s main strengths: it brings together in a single space material that reporters would normally have to hunt down across dozens of different platforms, from academic databases and research repositories to EU legislation and policy portals, news outlets and online discussions.
They then switched to BOT. Building on their LENS findings, they narrowed their angle, explored the topic in more depth and drafted a targeted pitch for an editor, answering the questions every good pitch must: What is the story? What is the context? And why should readers care? In other words, the tools were tested on exactly the kind of task journalists face in their day-to-day work.
Speed matters, sources matter more
Participants found both tools fast and easy to use. But the point they returned to most was trust: knowing exactly where each piece of information came from. For journalists, a fast answer is worthless if it can’t be fully verified.
They described LENS as quick and intuitive. They singled out the source details and direct links next to every result, and the chance to compare different types of evidence on the same topic. For several participants, clearly identifiable sources set NEUROCLIMA apart from general-purpose AI assistants and meant less time spent fact-checking.
BOT drew similar praise for its speed and precision, and for bringing legislation, academic sources and public discussion together around one issue. Participants also saw the Knowledge Graph and discussion features as useful ways to dig deeper into a story.
“The reliability of the sources is the most important thing,” one participant said. Another said the tools “save us a lot of time and strengthen our credibility.”
The pilot was also designed to explore where the experience can get better. In general, participants asked for more hands-on time with the tools, and some raised questions about accessing the Hub and the need to register with an email address. The team also found that some features took longer to load when many users connected at once. This kind of direct, practical feedback is exactly what the pilots are for. It shows how the tools perform in real research and reporting, and where they need further refinement.
The insights gathered in this pilot will feed into the ongoing development of the NEUROCLIMA Hub and its tools across Europe.
The workshop was also a way to answer a question at the heart of the project: how can people working with complex climate information find relevant, reliable evidence more efficiently? Testing with the people who rely on that evidence every day is one way to get closer to the answer. stories: journalists in Greece and Cyprus try out NEUROCLIMA’s tools
