Here at LOYAL we’re on a mission to help push journalism forwards. In every aspect of our work we are driven by one core value: Loyalty, and we pride ourselves on our commitment to demonstrating this through constant improvement and innovation. And through this we wish to build the best and most trustworthy products our customers can rely on every day.

As a team, we are continually exploring tech solutions to build the most useful source of information with the aspiration to elevate journalism, transform workflows and celebrate excellent reporting at every level through the use of our tools.

Supporting the journalism industry

Protecting the journalism industry’s copyright is high on our agenda. 

We value the original work of journalists and through our NLA Media Access (NLA) license we are committed to supporting journalists in the creation of original content – through both the use of our tools and the building of our tools. 

“Our NLA license is one part of our on-going pledge to uphold copyright and support journalists,” says Dan Reeves, Co-founder of LOYAL. “We want to play a constructive role in the development of the AI and copyright conversation as this space evolves.”

Alongside this, we are a proud member of the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) which supports over 250 media organisations. We also aim to develop relationships with the News Media Association (NMA) which “champions the vital role that local, regional and national journalism plays in democratic society.” 

In forging valuable relationships with these journalism associations – and other key organisations such as the British Society of Magazine Editors (BSME) and LSE’s journalism think-tank, POLIS – we hope to work with newsrooms and publishers to build a stronger future for journalism together.

We believe that technology companies must be a part of the conversation when it comes to moving journalism forwards as we enter this “new era of journalism” in the words of journalism professor Charlie Beckett.

Building tools journalists can trust

In order to meet the changing needs of journalists in a digital age and promote quality, credible news, we are focused on creating tools that reporters can trust.  

Fake news is a growing source of concern among journalists. In fact, according to a Reuters Institute study, an alarming 63% of people in the UK are concerned about what is real and what is fake on the internet when it comes to news.  

Content is being consumed in all-new ways online – through search engines, news aggregators, and social media – providing the grounds for the spread of biased, misleading, or false content and opening up all-new threats to trusted information. 

This is why we see it as not only our aim but our social responsibility to build tools that assist journalists in gathering the most accurate information possible to assist their reporting and add credibility to their journalistic output. 

Minimising fake news

“We’re delighted to apply the power of machine learning to helping journalists substantiate the integrity of their work. In an era of fake news, this has to be a priority,” says Ben Martin, fellow Director and Co-founder of LOYAL.  

So, in an effort to equip journalists with the most trustworthy tools, we are exploring the latest tech solutions to identify and minimise the spread of false information online. For instance, we are looking to partnering with AllSides and Factmata – two companies at the forefront of the fight against fake news and bias – to advance the offering of our own tools.  

Both AllSides and Factmata provide transparent analysis of online news content to give customers an indicator of its reliability. NewsGuard, for example, provides trust ratings for 6,000+ news websites and AllSides analyses content against its in-depth ‘Media Bias Chart’, enabling reporters to think critically about the content they are consuming to build news stories every day.

For more help combating false information as a reporter, read our seven tips on how to identify a fake news story.

Empowering reporters through added search functionality

Our hope is to build upon our Sentiment Analysis technology which currently uses natural language processing to analyse news articles and identify a journalist’s stance on a topic as either positive, negative, or neutral in a matter of seconds.

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Find out more about our Sentiment Analysis technology and further features of our one-click journalism research tool here. 

“We’ve built a simple traffic-light system that enables you to quickly see how other journalists have reacted to the same subject you are reporting on,” says Leonidas Constantinou, Machine Learning Engineer at LOYAL. “It works as another filter to help you get straight to information you want to read.” 

LOYAL’s Research Assistant retrieves the most related articles from an extensive range of trusted sources using Natural Language Processing (NLP). From here, a journalist can scan articles at speed with the benefit of quick-glance sentiment analysis.

We are continually exploring new technology to build out the functionality of our tools to put trusted sources at the fingertips of time-pressed journalists.

In addition to our efforts to curb the spread of false information and support journalists through upholding copyright, find out more about our values on our About page.