How Gazeta.pl uses Pinpoint to bridge cross-border language barriers
For Gazeta.pl, one of Poland's leading news portals, the value of the CEE.AI Lab wasn't just the tools, but the connections. Jan Wąsiński, a creative project lead, specifically highlighted the impact of "small talks" with newsrooms from Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova about navigating their shared realities. In a region defined by complex geopolitics, stories about migration, security, or disinformation rarely stop at the border.
The Challenge: The Tower of Babel When investigating a regional story—such as the flow of disinformation across the CEE region—journalists face a "Tower of Babel" problem.
Language Silos: A Polish reporter might struggle to quickly assess a 50-page report in Moldovan or a transcript in Ukrainian without waiting for translation.
Disconnected Archives: Key evidence is often scattered across different newsrooms in different formats (PDFs, audio leaks, local localized reports).
Speed: Collaboration often slows down reporting because verifying sources across borders takes days.
The Solution: Pinpoint as the "Universal Translator" Workspace Jan and the team are exploring Pinpoint as a shared workspace that neutralizes language barriers. By creating a shared "Collection" with partner newsrooms (like those met at the Mixer workshop), they can pool resources that are instantly accessible to everyone.
The Workflow:
The Input: The Polish team uploads documents in Polish; the Ukrainian team uploads audio interviews in Ukrainian; the Moldovan team uploads reports in Romanian.
The Search: Pinpoint processes all files using OCR and speech-to-text.
The Magic: A Polish journalist can type a query in English or Polish (e.g., a specific politician's name). Pinpoint finds that name in the Ukrainian audio and the Romanian PDF, directing the journalist to the exact timestamp or page.
The Outcome: Real-Time Collaboration This turns a group of disparate newsrooms into a cohesive investigative network. It validates Jan's observation that "friends and foes" are all using AI—but here, AI is used to unite the "friends" (independent media).
Access: Journalists can "read" foreign-language audio files without knowing the language.
Context: It allows newsrooms to spot regional trends that would be invisible if looking only at domestic data.
Solidarity: It strengthens the network built at the Warsaw workshop by turning "small talks" into "shared projects."