Former TEGNA content chief Adrienne Roark joins Genna as AI adviser

Adrienne Roark, the former chief content officer of TEGNA, has joined media technology company Genna as a strategic adviser, with a remit to help shape artificial-intelligence tools and workflows for news organizations. Roark announced the appointment Tuesday, Oct. 20. Genna said she will work with its leadership and product teams on tools intended to reduce production burdens and help publishers distribute journalism across digital platforms. The company’s software turns existing reporting, structured editorial data and verified media assets into video programming for distribution across multiple platforms. Genna says it does not rely on synthetic imagery and that editorial standards and decisions remain with the newsroom. Roark framed the role around the administrative and technical work that can displace reporting. She identified interview transcription, file management, content-management systems and adapting stories for different formats as recurring demands on journalists’ time. Caretta Research, in a study sponsored by Quickplay and cited by Roark, found that broadcast journalists can spend up to 75% of their working time on technical workflows rather than reporting. Roark said collaboration among product, technology and editorial teams at TEGNA demonstrated how AI tools could cut repetitive work and give journalists more time for reporting. Roark joined TEGNA in February 2025 and oversaw its local-news and content operations. During her tenure, the broadcaster expanded digital distribution, including dedicated streaming applications with around-the-clock local-news programming. She left earlier this year after Nexstar Media Group completed its acquisition of TEGNA, though TEGNA continues to operate separately from Nexstar while an antitrust case proceeds. Before TEGNA, Roark held senior roles at CBS News & Stations, including president of editorial and newsgathering. Genna said her more than three decades in broadcast newsrooms gives her insight into newsroom operations and where technology can make a practical difference. Genna was launched in March by the team behind Stringr as an independent AI company focused on automating video creation. It operates independently while offering integrations with Stringr, whose on-demand videographer network has more than 100,000 contributors. Genna’s technology was already in use at Reach, Advance Local, Hearst and Gannett. A March account of the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s use of Genna’s VidGen tool illustrates the product’s intended workflow. The software makes a vertical video from a published article URL, using the story’s copy and multimedia, with background music and an AI voiceover; users can revise text, visuals, length and pronunciations before publishing in different aspect ratios. The company’s AI voiceovers support 21 languages. The Review-Journal, whose newsroom had about 85 journalists and eight video producers, used VidGen to repackage articles for social platforms. One Genna-produced video exceeded 1 million TikTok views in November 2025. Genna generally charges $3 per video, plus $1 for optional Getty video and photo licensing, and generally requires a monthly minimum of $1,000, equivalent to at least 250 videos.