A Camden County news website hopes to bypass algorithms to connect small businesses with the community

From Camden and Cherry Hill to Trenton and the Jersey Shore, what about life in New Jersey do you want WHYY News to cover? Let us know. Local news organizations and businesses share the same challenge: reaching their customers online. Matt Skoufalos has thought about it a lot. The founder and editor of NJ PEN, a local news website that serves Camden County, said the way some internet search engines are set up, many do not get beyond a summary generated by artificial intelligence. “I ve had instances where the Google AI search results for something I ve reported on, go through my paywall to extract content and then reassemble it incorrectly,” Skoufalos said. He added that he and other small business owners are fighting to reach an audience online even as the rules and pathways are ever changing. “Not only do people not understand what they re supposed to do to maximize that effort, but then there s people who actively game the system,” Skoufalos added. In order to bypass AI and online