Bridging journalism and technology to strengthen local media

By Iryna Vidanava, Business Viability Advisor at IMS

When I met Nuno Costa in October 2025 in Faro, he had already navigated an unusual transition: from local journalist and co-founder of a regional news outlet to business development manager at a Portuguese tech company. Several months into building a media unit at Dengun – a Faro-based startup studio and digital agency – Nuno was working at the intersection of two worlds that rarely speak the same language – newsrooms and software developers.

At the time, the unit was already collaborating with several local media in Portugal, including four Pluralistic Media for Democracy (PM4D) partners. When I reconnected with Nuno in June 2026, those projects had been completed, and what had started as an experiment had evolved into something more ambitious – a successful model for bridging journalism and technology to support local media sustainability.

From newsroom experimentation to ecosystem thinking 

Nuno’s journey on this path started long before. Trained as a journalist, he joined forces with two colleagues to launch the online newspaper Sul Informação in 2011. With no resources to hire software developers, Nuno built the outlet’s first website himself, learning by trial and error. Over time, he became the newsroom’s informal technology lead – experimenting, troubleshooting, and adapting digital tools for journalistic needs.

This hybrid experience – editorial, technical and operational – helped him understand that small newsrooms are not only under financial pressure. They are also navigating a digital ecosystem that they do not fully control – where platforms dictate traffic, advertising revenue is declining, and new technologies like AI are reshaping how audiences consume information.

Nuno realized that a major challenge for Sul Informação and other outlets like it is a lack of media-savvy tech capacity. Few small newsrooms have in-house tech specialists. When media organisations outsource development, they often get generic solutions that do not fit their workflows. At the same time, many tech providers do not fully understand the realities of journalism.

Addressing this gap became the mission, when Nuno Costa launched the media unit at Dengun – to translate, advise, and co-create affordable tech solutions for small and medium-sized newsrooms in Portugal and beyond. 

Turning ideas into products

The PM4D projects provided an opportunity to put this approach into practice. Rather than simply delivering technical solutions, Dengun worked closely with four Portuguese media outlets to shape their projects – challenging assumptions, suggesting alternatives, and grounding ideas in real editorial processes and audience needs. The results were diverse, but connected by a common goal: using tech to make local journalism more accessible, engaging, and sustainable. 

For Médio Tejo – a regional digital newspaper founded in central Portugal a decade ago by two journalists – this meant coming up with a mobile-first app that employs a format closer to Instagram “Stories” than traditional article feeds to capture the attention of young readers who tend to be fast-scrollers. 

Altominho– an independent web-based television channel in northwestern Portugal – developed a video-driven app to respond to the shift towards short-form content and changing audience habits.  

Postal do Algarve– a regional newspaper published since 1986 and whose popular website now reaches audiences nationwide – deployed a multilingual web-based AI chatbot to expand access to quality local news and the outlet’s extensive digital archives for migrant communities facing language barriers.  

Sul Informação engaged with seven secondary schools in the Algarve region to promote media literacy, combining an interactivedigital platform with collaborative editing tools and in-person work in schools to introduce younger audiences to journalism and encourage civic participation. 

Individually, these projects addressed specific challenges. Together, they embraced a broader, future-looking shift – local media not only rethinking their tech tools, but also how they reach and engage with their audiences.

Reducing news deserts

In both our conversations, the notion of “news deserts” kept resurfacing – and evolving. Traditionally understood as areas without adequate local news coverage, Nuno now sees a different kind of absence: “One of the biggest media deserts… is among young people.”

Even where local media exists, younger audiences are often absent. They primarily consume information via social media, rarely interact directly with journalism, and have a limited understanding of how news is produced. In this sense, the “news desert” challenge is not only geographic but also generational. 

The PM4D projects focused on both gaps. They aimed not only to make local outlets more sustainable but also to assist them reach young audiences and increase their media literacy. For Nuno, the projects were not just to help outlets innovate but to address a wider sectoral challenge: “If we fail to connect young people with media and journalism now, the news deserts in 5-10 years will be much bigger,” he told me.

Freeing time for quality journalism

In addition to working on these PM4D projects, Nuno and Dengun also developed their own AI-powered product for newsrooms – WizzPress. Originally designed to help journalists process large volumes of incoming information like press releases, WizzPress evolved into a comprehensive operating system in less than a year.

WizzPress now integrates multiple steps in the editorial workflow, including interview transcription, human-led but AI-assisted writing and editing, fact-checking and research, content generation from images, emails or feeds, and SEO optimisation and tagging.

The goal of WizzPress is not to replace journalism, but to free up time for it by allowing reporters to focus on in-depth stories rather than routine production tasks. For small newsrooms with limited resources, the product’s impact has been immediate. “When you see small media outlets saving more than one day of journalistic time per week, that shows that we are doing something right,” – says Nuno, who brought the WizzPress idea to Dengun as a solution to the constraints he had experienced first-hand as a journalist and manager at Sul Informação. 

From innovation to sustainability

A key lesson from these projects is that tech innovation does not end with delivery. Every new tool comes with ongoing responsibilities – maintenance, updates, and costs. This is especially true for AI-driven products. For local media, this requires a shift not only in tools, but also in mindset: from project-based thinking to long-term planning.

What drives Nuno is to help local media survive in a challenging and rapidly changing environment: “If I can save one media outlet from dying by helping with automation or strategy – it’s a victory.” Eight months later, he does not claim to have transformed the sector. But he can see progress – newsrooms working more efficiently, experimenting more, and gaining confidence in using technology.

Back in 2025, Dengun’s media unit was still trying to demonstrate its value. By mid-2026, that validation is visible. Portuguese media organisations are not only using Dengun’s tech products; they are also actively seeking out its expertise in understanding media needs, identifying funding opportunities, designing projects, and developing and maintaining tech solutions.

What started with conversations, brainstorming sessions and public discussions between Nuno’s team and local publishers has now expanded into partnerships with the Portuguese Press Association, universities, and media development actors in Europe. This growing network reflects an important evolution from isolated projects to long-term ecosystem strengthening. The bridge is working.

We’ve asked newsrooms to highlight any change or achievements resulting from interventions, activities or news articles that have been part of the PM4D programme.

Why do we not just report on how many media outlets we supported, how many received a training in AI and in advertising?When impact is documented, shared and celebrated, journalism becomes easier to fund, easier to defend, and harder to ignore.

Read more impact stories: There is value in stories of overlooked people | IMS

The Media Pluralism Fund is operated by Journalismfund Europe and the Capacity Building and Mentorship is run by IMS (International Media Support). This project is co-funded by the European Commission and the King Baudouin Foundation.