Briefly News Wins Silver for EditorialEye at WAN-IFRA's 2026 African Digital Media Awards
Source: Original
- Briefly News' custom-built AI editorial assistant, EditorialEye, won Silver in the Best AI-Driven News Product, Format or Strategy category at the 11th edition of WAN-IFRA's African Digital Media Awards.
- The win builds on EditorialEye's earlier recognition as a global finalist at the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Awards 2026, selected from 811 entries across 78 countries.
- EditorialEye supports Briefly News' editorial team without replacing human judgement, checking grammar, structure and SEO while leaving all final editorial decisions to human editors.
Briefly News has won Silver in the Best AI-Driven News Product, Format or Strategy category at the 11th edition of WAN-IFRA's African Digital Media Awards, for its custom-built AI editorial assistant, EditorialEye.
A Second Major Recognition for EditorialEye
The World Association of News Publishers announced the winners, with South African newsrooms and journalists taking the top positions across seven categories at this year's awards. The awards recognise initiatives that push the boundaries of storytelling, strengthen audience relationships, and define the future of media across the continent.
EditorialEye Supports Editors Without Replacing Them
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EditorialEye is Briefly News' in-house editorial tool, built on ChatGPT Pro and trained using the newsroom's own editorial guides, SEO standards and ethical frameworks. It performs structured checks on grammar, article structure and SEO compliance, and flags research gaps and potential ethical or media law risks, but does not generate publishable content. Final editorial decisions remain with human editors, with copyeditors auditing outputs to maintain transparency and accountability.
A Recognition Years in the Making
This is not Briefly News' first appearance in this category. The newsroom was first named a finalist for AI use in the newsroom at the Digital Media Awards Africa in 2024, a period during which the team was still testing how AI could responsibly support editorial work without compromising it. That early groundwork fed directly into the development of EditorialEye, which went on to earn Briefly News a place among the 278 global finalists selected from 811 entries across 78 countries at this year's WAN-IFRA Digital Media Awards Worldwide, before now converting that nomination into a Silver win at the African regional stage.
Built to Solve a Volume Problem Without Cutting Corners
EditorialEye is Briefly News' in-house editorial tool, built on ChatGPT Pro and trained using the newsroom's own editorial guides, SEO standards and ethical frameworks. It was developed after editors found themselves spending disproportionate time on repetitive quality-control tasks, including proofreading, restructuring articles, rewriting headlines and checking SEO compliance, time that came directly out of deeper reporting, fact-checking and editorial coaching.
The tool works through a structured, multi-step editorial workflow. Writers submit draft articles, and EditorialEye checks spelling, grammar and punctuation, evaluates article structure and completeness against the five Ws and how, suggests SEO improvements across headlines, metadata and keyphrases, identifies gaps where expert commentary could strengthen a story, and flags potential ethical or media law risks for editorial review. It also assesses social media text and preview images before publication.
Since implementation, EditorialEye has helped Briefly News increase daily output from between 80 and 90 articles to between 150 and 200 articles per day, contributing to a 22% increase in page views over six months. Editorial consistency across platforms also improved, alongside fewer post-publication corrections.
Human Editors Remain the Final Decision-Makers
The tool was deliberately built with guardrails. EditorialEye provides diagnostic feedback and recommendations rather than publish-ready copy, and every suggestion is reviewed, accepted or rejected by a human editor. This governance extends to a formal AI usage policy that explicitly bans fully AI-generated content, an EditorialEye Ethical Usage Guide setting out limitations and accountability processes, regular staff training on responsible AI use, and ongoing audits by copy editors to check compliance.
That framing matters for how the tool has been received. In an earlier reflection on the project, the Briefly News team described EditorialEye as not an autopilot, noting that human judgement stays central and that copy editors audit outputs to ensure the tool supports, rather than overrides, editorial decision-making.
Judges Highlight Responsible Innovation Across the Field
Commenting on this year's broader field of finalists, WAN-IFRA CEO Stig Ørskov, speaking at the 77th World News Media Congress in Marseille, said what stood out was the willingness of publishers to push boundaries without losing sight of what matters most, which is earning and sustaining audience trust. He added that the strongest entries demonstrated how new technologies, when deployed responsibly, could deepen audience relationships, reinforce editorial integrity, and create richer experiences that audiences genuinely value, a description that closely mirrors the design philosophy behind EditorialEye.
WAN-IFRA's Nicole Frankenhauser also praised this year's African winners as a group, saying in the organisation's official announcement that WAN-IFRA commends the news media organisations across Africa for their creativity and dedication shown in these groundbreaking projects.
Part of a Broader Newsroom Strategy
Strategically, EditorialEye sits within Briefly News' wider push to scale responsibly while maintaining editorial standards. The Silver win adds to that record, and the newsroom has continued to share the lessons from building the tool with the wider industry, including through its contributions to the International News Media Association's blog network, where EditorialEye has featured in discussions on ethical AI adoption in African newsrooms.
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Source: Briefly News
