El Colectivo 506

El Colectivo 506 is a digital journalism organization based in Costa Rica that publishes investigative and solutions-focused journalism in Spanish. Beyond publishing, they train journalists across Latin America in solutions journalism, a discipline that requires a specific methodology most reporters have never learned. They had developed extensive training resources and documentation over the years, but their editorial expertise for evaluating story pitches lived in scattered documents and the heads of senior editors, which created bottlenecks in their training programs.

Solutions journalism is not simply reporting on problems or profiling people doing good work. It requires examining a response to a social problem, investigating whether it works, and exploring what lessons can be learned. Getting this distinction right is the difference between impactful journalism and well-intentioned fluff. El Colectivo had built a complicated flowchart with numerous decision points and gateways to evaluate whether a pitch met their criteria, along with piles of training documents and resources. The knowledge existed, but it was fragmented and difficult to scale.

The feedback loop was slow because it depended on human availability, and the organization could not expand their educational impact without hiring more editors. They also needed to support journalists working in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, which added another layer of complexity.

When El Colectivo came to us, they had already done significant thinking about what they wanted. They had training documents, evaluation criteria, a halfway-done flowchart, and a clear vision for the personality of their tool: a sloth named Luz who would be their mascot. Luz needed to embody specific characteristics. She should be playful and slow, respectful yet firm and strict when guiding journalists through the methodology. From the first conversation, we knew an AI-powered chatbot was the right answer. The challenge was translating all of their fragmented resources into a coherent system.

We asked El Colectivo to share everything they had with us without cleaning it up first. We wanted the raw materials: every document, every training resource, every note about how they evaluated pitches. This allowed us to understand the full scope of their methodology rather than working from a sanitized summary that might miss important nuances.

We then transformed all of those documents and requirements into a clean, optimized system prompt that would govern how the chatbot responded to users. To save time and iterate faster, we ran design and chatbot configuration in parallel. We presented the chatbot in a simple UI early so the El Colectivo team could review its performance before we invested significant time building out the full experience. This approach reduced the risk of expensive rework later.

Meanwhile, our design team developed a playful, warm design language that matched Luz’s personality and El Colectivo’s brand. After several iterations on the chatbot configuration, once we confirmed it was performing exactly as the team had described, and after the design and copy were approved, we presented the completed UI for beta testing. We continued refining the final configuration in parallel, which did not interfere with the testing process. No major issues emerged, and we moved smoothly toward launch on the new domain.

We delivered a custom WordPress site featuring Luz, an AI-powered chatbot that guides journalists through the story pitch development process. The chatbot uses a carefully engineered system prompt that encodes El Colectivo’s editorial methodology and Luz’s distinctive personality. When a journalist submits a story idea, Luz asks probing questions, identifies gaps in the pitch, and provides constructive feedback aligned with solutions journalism principles, all while maintaining her playful-but-firm character.

The system supports English, Spanish, and Portuguese, detecting the user’s language preference and maintaining consistency throughout the conversation. Registered users can save their conversation history and return to previous sessions. When a journalist completes the guided process, they receive a formatted summary they can export as a PDF or send to their email. The site includes LearnPress integration so El Colectivo can build out their full training curriculum over time.

El Colectivo now has a tool that provides immediate, thoughtful feedback on story pitches at any hour, in three languages. Journalists working on stories no longer need to wait for an editor’s availability to get initial guidance on whether their pitch meets solutions journalism criteria. The fragmented knowledge that once lived in scattered documents and flowcharts now powers a consistent, scalable training experience.

The early response from users has been strong. As Mónica Quesada Cordero, co-founder of El Colectivo 506, noted after launch: “The reaction has been really, really good.” One certified global solutions journalism trainer shared this feedback: “I literally just consulted Luz with a story idea a few minutes ago. What a fantastic tool. Truly impressive work, congratulations to the whole team.”

The combination of the chatbot with LearnPress gives El Colectivo a complete learning platform that can scale their educational mission across Latin America. Their senior editors can now focus their limited time on pitches that have already passed an initial quality threshold.