Pinpoint is a noticeable member of Reporter Studio, a series of journalist tools launched by Google. The purpose of Reporter Studio is to help journalists “work more efficiently, creatively and safely.” And Pinpoint is a tool that Google highlights to use artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help journalists screen massive investigation materials.
Google says Pinpoint can help journalists explore and analyze a large number of documents. It’s free and easy to use. In this way, journalists can focus more on reporting, the company says.
Megan Chan, Google News Initiative’s News Ecosystem Lead, says this technology is a news tool that she had been looking for when she was the director of digital operations of The Washington Post and Politico’s director of digital product. Megan Chan believes that Pinpoint will help journalists focus on their core business: finding the story, reporting it out and writing the narrative.
Pinpoint helps journalists screen massive investigation materials（Google）
The basic function of Pinpoint is a super document search tool. Pinpoint uses optical character recognition and speech-to-text technology to search pdf, photos, emails and audio files. All these kinds of files can be uploaded on GDrive, and the machine learning technology behind makes it possible to search for relevance among all kinds of documents in huge quantities.
Pinpoint can also recognize handwriting and convert interview audio into text for easy analysis and search.
In her blog, Megan Chan gives some practical examples that Pinpoint delivered. With the help of Pinpoint, USA TODAY reported 40,000 deaths in nursing homes related to COVID-19, and Reveal investigated the COVID-19 “testing disaster” of ICE detention centers. The Washington Post article on the opioid crisis is also a good example of using Pinpoint to dig deep.
Pinpoint is now available and journalists can register online for the permission of access. At present, journalists can upload and analyze documents in seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.
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