Playbook: Alex for Journalists

Your reference for using Alex in reporting, research, and editorial work. Ready-to-run prompts for story development, research, interviewing, and writing.

What This Guide Is Not

This is not a habit formation guide (see Self-Study Guide for that). This is a journalism toolkit — the specific ways Alex can accelerate your reporting while preserving the accountability standards that make journalism matter.

Where to Practice These Prompts

Every prompt in this guide works with any AI assistant — ChatGPT, Claude, GitHub Copilot, Gemini, or whatever tool you prefer. The prompts are the skill; the tool is just where you type them. Pick the one you’re comfortable with and start today.

For an integrated experience, the Alex VS Code extension (free) was purpose-built for this workshop. It understands journalism context, lets you save effective prompts with /saveinsight, and brings your playbook and practice exercises into one workspace. VS Code is a free editor that takes minutes to set up, even if you’ve never used it before.

You don’t need a specific tool to benefit. You need the habit of reaching for AI when the work is genuinely hard — not just when it’s repetitive.

Core Principle for Journalists

Journalism is about finding truth and telling it clearly. Alex can help you research faster, structure stories better, and communicate more compellingly — but it cannot report for you. Every fact must be verified through primary sources. Alex is a research assistant, not a source.

Non-negotiable: Never use AI-generated content as factual claims without independent verification. Alex can help you find what to investigate; you have to do the actual investigating.

The Seven Use Cases

1. Story Development and Pitching

When to use: Developing a story idea, evaluating newsworthiness, pitching to editors.

Prompt pattern:

Help me develop this story:

Idea: [what you're pursuing]
What happened: [the basic facts]
Why it matters: [who is affected and how]
What's not publicly known: [the reporting gap]
Audience: [who reads/watches this]

Help me:
1. Sharpen the story's central question
2. Identify what makes this newsworthy (proximity, impact, novelty)
3. Find the human angle
4. Anticipate what an editor will ask
5. Draft a one-paragraph pitch

Follow-up prompts:

My editor says "so what?" How do I answer that?

Find the most compelling version of this story.

This feels timely but I can't say why. What hooks does this have?

Try this now: You are developing a story about a local hospital’s nurse-to-patient ratios. You have state filing data, anonymous tips from two nurses, and the hospital’s published quality metrics. Use the story development prompt to map what you have versus what you need. The output will help you identify the reporting gaps — what public records to request, what data to verify, what sources to contact — before you commit weeks to the story.

2. Research and Background

When to use: Orienting on a new beat, understanding context, building background knowledge.

Prompt pattern:

Help me understand this topic:

Subject: [what I'm reporting on]
My background: [what I already know]
What I need to understand: [specific gaps]
Sources I have: [who I've already talked to or documents I have]

Help me:
1. Identify the key players and their interests
2. Explain the relevant history and context
3. Find the technical or regulatory background
4. Suggest document types or data sources to find
5. Flag what experts in this space disagree about

Follow-up prompts:

What am I not asking that I should be?

Who benefits and who loses in this situation?

What's the counterargument to the obvious narrative?

Reminder: Use this for orientation only. Verify every claim with primary sources.

3. Interview Preparation

When to use: Preparing questions, anticipating answers, researching interview subjects.

Prompt pattern:

Help me prepare for an interview:

Subject: [who you're interviewing, their role]
Story angle: [what you're investigating]
What they likely know: [their expertise or involvement]
What I want to get: [the information you need]
What they'll resist: [where they might be defensive]

Create:
1. Opener to establish rapport
2. Key questions in effective order
3. Follow-up questions for likely answers
4. Questions to probe inconsistencies
5. The question that will be hardest to ask

Follow-up prompts:

They'll say "no comment." What do I do?

They're spinning. How do I redirect?

What's the question that could unlock the whole story?

4. Document and Data Analysis

When to use: Making sense of documents, records, filings, or data obtained through reporting.

Prompt pattern:

Help me analyze this:

Document type: [filing / contract / email / database / report]
What I have:
[paste or describe the content]
What I'm looking for: [what would be newsworthy]
Context: [why this document matters]

Help me:
1. Identify the most significant information
2. Find language that seems significant or unusual
3. Compare to what's publicly known
4. Generate questions this document raises
5. Identify what's conspicuously absent

Follow-up prompts:

This number seems off. How would I verify it?

Translate this legal/regulatory/financial language into plain English.

What would I need to find to make this a story?

5. Story Structure and Writing

When to use: Organizing your reporting, structuring a draft, editing for clarity.

Prompt pattern:

Help me structure this story:

What happened: [the facts]
Key figures: [people involved]
Stakes: [what matters and for whom]
My angle: [what I'm focusing on]
Length: [approximate word count]
Format: [news / feature / investigation / explainer]

Create:
1. A lede that grabs readers
2. Story structure in logical order
3. Where to place the "nut graf"
4. What quotes/scenes to lead each section
5. A memorable ending

Follow-up prompts:

My lede is boring. Give me 5 alternatives.

This section is too long. What can I cut?

A non-expert reader is confused here. How do I fix it?

6. Verification and Fact-Checking

When to use: Checking facts, finding inconsistencies, stress-testing your story.

Prompt pattern:

Help me verify this story:

Claims to check:
[list the factual claims in your story]
Sources I've used: [who told you what]
What I haven't verified: [gaps]

Help me:
1. Identify the claims most at risk of being wrong
2. Suggest how to verify each type of claim
3. Find potential inconsistencies in my sourcing
4. What a skeptical editor would challenge
5. What a subject of the story would dispute

Follow-up prompts:

One source says X and another says Y. How do I resolve the conflict?

This is a serious allegation. What do I need before I can publish?

Play devil's advocate — what's wrong with my story?

7. Explainers and Context

When to use: Writing background pieces, explainers, or helping readers understand complex topics.

Prompt pattern:

Help me write an explainer:

Topic: [what you're explaining]
Audience: [assumed knowledge level]
What they need to understand: [key concepts]
Why it matters now: [news hook]
Length: [target word count]

Create an explainer that:
1. Opens with why this matters to the reader
2. Explains concepts in accessible language
3. Uses analogies where helpful
4. Answers the most common questions
5. Tells them what to watch for next

Follow-up prompts:

This is too technical. Simplify without dumbing down.

Add a concrete example for the abstract concept in paragraph 3.

What will readers still be confused about after reading this?

Your AI toolkit: These prompts work in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini — and in the Alex VS Code extension, which was designed around them. Start with whatever you have. The skill transfers across all of them.

What Great Looks Like

After consistent use, you should notice:

Sharper story development before you start reporting
Better-prepared interviews with fewer missed questions
Cleaner story structure in first drafts
More rigorous verification before publication

The goal isn’t for Alex to report your stories — it’s for Alex to help you report them better.

Practice Plan

Day	Focus	Time
Day 1	Develop a current story idea using the pitch and story development prompts	30 min
Day 2	Prepare for an upcoming interview using the interview prep framework	30 min
Day 3	Structure a draft using the story structure and writing prompts	25 min
Day 4	Fact-check a recent story using the verification prompts	30 min
Day 5	Review the week’s prompts — save your three best with /saveinsight	25 min

Month 2–3

Shift from guided exercises to independent workflows — build templates, integrate AI into your real projects, and create reusable prompt libraries for repeating tasks.

Track Your Growth

/saveinsight Story Development Frameworks: [brief description]

/saveinsight Interview Preparation Techniques: [brief description]

Continue your practice: Self-Study Guide has weekly challenges to keep building your skills after the workshop ends.

A Note on Sources and Standards

All factual claims require independent verification from primary sources

Never represent AI-generated text as your own reporting

Be transparent about AI use per your newsroom’s policies

AI cannot protect sources or navigate off-the-record conversations

Your editorial judgment is irreplaceable

Journalism’s value is its accountability. Protect it.