Spain’s SPORT explores new forms of AI assistance for print production
By Joan Cañete BayleDirector of Editorial Strategy, Prensa Ibérica
Print continues to play a key role for many publishers, even as newsrooms adopt digital-first workflows.
Newsrooms work first for the web, update content throughout the day and then adapt part of that work to other media, formats and editorial needs.
For the newspaper SPORT, where news cycles are intense, the sports agenda is constantly evolving, and the content offering is increasingly diverse, balancing digital and print requires well-coordinated processes.
The print edition requires selection, hierarchy, adjustment and layout, while always maintaining the outlet’s editorial identity and the final quality of the product.
This is the context for ESCRIBA, a project developed by Ediciones Deportivas Catalanas, S.A.U., publisher of SPORT, aimed at exploring how AI can support certain tasks linked to laying out the print edition.
The initiative receives public funding under the grants for integrating AI into the value chains of media companies.
The challenge of connecting digital and print
Digital transformation has changed the way information is produced.
News is published, updated and enriched throughout the day in the digital environment, while the print edition requires content to be subsequently organised according to selection, design, space and deadline requirements.
This process requires precise coordination. It is not simply a matter of moving texts from one medium to another, but of adapting content to a different logic: a printed page has physical limits, a specific visual hierarchy and composition requirements that shape the way information is presented.
In SPORT’s case, this challenge is combined with the nature of a sports newsroom, where current events can change quickly and where breaking news, analysis, interviews, previews, match reports, service content and background pieces coexist.
The print edition must organise that flow and turn it into a closed, coherent product that readers recognise.
Support for laying out the print edition
ESCRIBA is conceived as an initiative to analyse and develop forms of intelligent assistance applied to the process of laying out the print edition.
Its aim is to help certain preparation, adjustment and organisation tasks be carried out more efficiently, always within SPORT’s editorial judgement.
The project focuses on the relationship between content from the digital environment and its subsequent adaptation to paper. That path involves decisions on selection, distribution, adjustment of pieces and adaptation to the final page design.
AI can help organise part of this process, facilitate working proposals and reduce operational friction in tasks that require precision and time.
The purpose is not to alter the identity of the print product, but to strengthen the process that makes it possible to build it. The print edition maintains its own requirements: visual balance, information hierarchy, style coherence and editorial control.
ESCRIBA sits within that framework, as a tool that supports professional work and accompanies the process without displacing the responsibility of those who supervise it.
Professional judgement as the reference point
Laying out a print edition is not a purely mechanical task. It involves editorial decisions, knowledge of the outlet, visual sensitivity and an understanding of the relative importance of each piece of content.
For that reason, any application of AI in this area must operate as support for the teams responsible for finalising and editing the edition.
In ESCRIBA, technology is understood as assistance to facilitate specific tasks within a process guided by professionals.
It can help prepare alternatives, organise materials or support adjustments within defined editorial parameters, but the final result depends on the judgement of those who know the publication, its priorities and its way of addressing readers.
This approach makes it possible to combine efficiency and control. AI provides support in phases of the process that can benefit from greater assisted automation, while human supervision ensures that every decision preserves SPORT’s news, visual and editorial coherence.
An initiative linked to public grants
ESCRIBA forms part of the actions promoted under the grants for integrating AI into the value chains of media companies.
This line of public funding is aimed at experimental development projects that apply AI to improve processes, strengthen competitiveness and foster the sector’s technological transformation.
In SPORT’s case, the project makes it possible to go deeper into an issue that is especially relevant for media outlets with print editions: how to improve the connection between digital content and the print layout process, while maintaining editorial quality and reducing operational workloads in intensive phases of work.
The grant helps drive an initiative that requires analysis, coordination, validation and a careful assessment of its usefulness within the real production workflow.
Its value lies precisely in exploring a concrete application of AI in a part of the editorial chain where efficiency and precision are especially important.
Innovation in support of the editorial closing process
Finalising a print edition requires decisions to be made under tight deadlines. Content must be organised, spaces resolved, editorial priorities respected and the final product’s identity preserved.
At SPORT, this process also takes place in a fast-moving news context.
ESCRIBA addresses that challenge from a practical perspective. AI is incorporated as a way to support the layout of the print edition and facilitate the work of those involved in that process.
It is not presented as an isolated technology, but as a tool serving a specific need: making the preparation of the print edition from content created in the digital environment more efficient.
With this project, SPORT advances in the responsible application of AI to its editorial processes.
ESCRIBA makes it possible to explore new forms of support for print editing, with a clear orientation: improving the organisation of work, complementing the work of professionals and keeping editorial control as the central element of the final result.
