The Lantern: an AI-automated local newspaper written from public records

The Lantern is a free local newspaper for New Carlisle, Ohio, written from public records. Compass IT Solutions built its AI news automation pipeline: AI drafts each story from official data, and a mechanical check rejects any figure, date or citation that is not in the record. Since November 2026 an editor also approves every new story.

Client: The Lantern (lanternfeed.com)
Sector: Media
Location: New Carlisle, Ohio, USA
Year: 2026

Results

2,821

Public records, 34 sources

152

AI-drafted, fact-checked stories

~$0.08

AI cost per article (estimate)

163 req/s

50 concurrent users, p95 454 ms

The New Carlisle Lantern front page, an AI-automated local newspaper: masthead, section menu and the day's stories

The challenge

Small towns have lost their local papers while the public record keeps growing: road works, weather alerts, inspections, council and state filings. The question was whether software could turn those records into accurate, readable news without inventing anything.

Accuracy had to be provable rather than promised. A local paper that gets one number wrong loses the readers it exists for.

What we did

Government data sources feed one records table on a schedule. Weather, road and air-quality alerts are designed to post within about 15 minutes; everything else goes out in a daily morning run.

AI drafts each story from its record. A mechanical checker then rejects any dollar amount, large number, date or citation that does not appear in the source data. A draft that fails twice is withheld, and readers get a version assembled directly from the record instead.

Every article links to the filing it came from and states how it was made. Private citizens' names are removed before drafting. From 1 November 2026 a person approves every new article before it publishes.

Stack

Next.js · FastAPI (Python) · PostgreSQL (Neon) · Fly.io · Vercel · Claude

Services

START HERE

Get in touch.

Most engagements start with a conversation. Tell us what you're working on and we'll come back to you within one business day.

+974 5149 0825