Journalism
Watchdogs

Pick Your Dog(s). Paste Your Text. Release the Hounds.

YOUR Journalism Watchdogs are on high alert, ready to do some barking about how to make better journalistic stories. These canine-inspired writing coaches just need to be called to action to sink their teeth into one of your drafts.

  • Step 1: Determine what kind of feedback you want on your draft, and then CHOOSE one or more of the 'Dogs and their specialties by selecting an image or checkbox.
  • Step 2: Copy and PASTE your draft story into the text box below.
  • Step 3: Select the "RELEASE THE HOUNDS" button.
  • Step 4: Read the feedback, and use it to make better Journalism.

Select the Specific Watchdog(s) You Want to Help You:

The Hawaiian language, ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, is the indigenous language of Hawaiʻi. Poni will help to make sure that any words that appear from the Hawaiian language in your texts have the appropriate diacritical marks by teaching you about the language and the markings.
McLuhan knows what it takes to catch an ear or an eyeball, with his recommendations for journalistic podcasts, videos, photography, charts, etc. Every story starts as an idea. Every idea can be expressed in any medium. The medium, McLuhan argues, makes the message.
Murrow wants to understand who's talking about the topic. He is well-connected with the people in the know, and he mostly is concerned with the quality of a story's sources. He especially appreciates the triangulation of independent authoritative sources.
Occam has a nose for flabby prose. He sniffs out unnecessary words, awkward phrasing and meandering paragraphs. Once he gets his teeth into your text, he will teach you about ways to make more direct, efficient and engaging sentences. Space jam? Call on Occam.
Wolfe stands out from the pack due to his deep reporting efforts and stylistic writing, pepping up any piece of narrative with zippy verbs and an active voice but also through the recognition of a storyʻs characters, settings, dialogue, and descriptive passages.
This journalist is good at math, really good at math. She wants to help all number-challenged journalists to make sure that whatever stat or other quantified piece of data being circulated by their sources stands up to external scrutiny. In other words, no more free passes on 1 + 1 = 3.
Thomas wants his journalism to make sense ... scientifically. So he carefully reads the data, the findings and the interpretations to ensure it is all accurate. Specifically, he wants validated scientific facts, logical consistency and verified units or measurements.
Didion is the kind of 'Dog who reads dictionaries for fun. She can create a portmanteau for any occasion. She keeps her subjects and verbs close and her verb tenses even closer, in alignment. She is displeased by linguistic ambiguity. But she enjoys the playful parts of the English language as well.
Charlotte can tell you the plural of emoji (it's also emoji), whether to use OK or okay (OK) and why journalists don't refer to postal carriers as "mailmen." She appreciates journalists who know when to "look it up!" in the Associated Press Stylebook as a way to express industry standards.
Chester is a different 'Dog than the rest. He has a Public Relations perspective on the journalistic publishing process and thinks about how sources can best speak the language of a journalist through information prioritization. To use his talents effectively, paste a draft press release into the text box and release this hound.

As a university-led and journalistic initiative, we fiercely guard and protect your data. We NEVER share it with others. And it will NOT be used as LLM training data, either. For further self-protection, also avoid submitting personally identifiable information (PII) to this or any other open online system.

Journalism Watchdogs provides a nonpartisan, open-access and innovative online tool aimed at improving journalism practice in the United States, especially within high-level educational contexts. It has no ideological agenda. Our prime directive is to find ways — through emerging AI affordances — to help journalists do better work. Journalism Watchdogs uses computational interactions with powerful transformer networks through their Large Language Models to generate its suggestions. Most importantly from our perspective as educators, the tool requires the author to reflect upon this GenAI feedback and make human-powered choices. In other words, these Journalism Watchdogs will not do the writing for the journalist. The 'Dogs instead aim to guide and support the journalist. Feedback from the 'Dogs is usually helpful. The 'Dogs are well-intentioned, fast and focused. They also are not perfect. So please use this feedback judiciously. What can you learn from the 'Dogs? ... Try it and find out.

This online tool was created in August 2024 for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's Journalism program, in the School of Communication and Information, in the College of Social Sciences.



The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can't be right all the time. He doesn't bark only when he sees or smells something that's dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.

— Dan Rather, paraphrased from the SXSW 2007: Keynote, March 12, 2007