Catalina man uses AI, journalism skills to create free Tucson news site, linking local news organizations

For Tucson residents trying to keep up with local government and news from multiple organizations, a new free website is bringing much of that information together in one place. The Tucson Daily Brief, created by Catalina resident Nicholas De Leon, collects local news reports, including coverage from KGUN 9, and provides summaries of council meetings. De Leon is operating the project as a nonprofit and says the site is not intended to generate income. Instead, he describes it as a way to contribute to the community he has come to call home.

The project grew out of De Leon’s curiosity about what artificial intelligence could make possible. Rather than developing software through traditional coding, he experiments by entering instructions into AI systems and seeing what they produce. His approach is hands-on and exploratory, driven by questions about what might be useful or interesting to create. That process eventually led to a news site designed to centralize information that otherwise appears across several local news organizations and government meetings.

For people who live in Tucson and nearby communities, the site’s focus extends beyond simply collecting headlines. The Tucson Daily Brief also summarizes local council meetings, giving residents another way to follow decisions and discussions by elected officials. The available information does not identify which councils are covered or describe the site’s publishing schedule, but De Leon’s stated goal is to make local information easier to find by placing it on one website. Its geographic focus connects his home in Catalina and Oro Valley to the broader Tucson community.

De Leon says AI is involved in producing some of the site’s material, but he does not treat the technology as an unchecked replacement for journalism. He said he double checks, and sometimes triple checks, facts before anything is published. He also personally writes or edits about half of the site’s content. That division of work reflects his concern about allowing an entirely automated system to publish without human review. His journalism background gives him experience with reporting, while the AI tools help him explore ways to organize and present information.

That background began in New York, where De Leon was born and raised and worked for various news outlets. He moved to Arizona in 2023, leaving the New York City environment he associated with Queens and settling in the Sonoran Desert. His description of the move is strongly personal. He said he fell in love with the region, citing its people and architecture, and said he enjoys living here compared with Queens. Those connections, rather than a commercial opportunity, appear to be central to why he decided to build a local news project.

De Leon also has a personal connection to the area through his marriage. He said he met his wife in Oro Valley, which helped deepen his ties to the community. The Tucson Daily Brief grew from his question about how he could give something back to a place that had given him so much. Although the project costs him money to operate, he says he continues to offer it free to readers. The nonprofit structure and lack of a stated profit motive distinguish the site from a commercial news venture, at least in its current form.

The project emerged after De Leon contacted KGUN 9 following an earlier story about another local resident who used AI to create free applications for the community, including an app intended to help people discover Tucson restaurants. That earlier example prompted De Leon to share what he had been developing. His message became an opportunity to explain how he is applying AI to a familiar public service, local journalism, while retaining personal responsibility for reviewing the results.

The Tucson Daily Brief arrives as AI becomes more common in everyday work and media, raising questions about accuracy, editing and accountability. De Leon’s stated process places fact checking and human involvement at the center of the site, rather than presenting automation as sufficient on its own. For Tucson residents, the project offers another location to look for local reporting and council information, while its creator continues to refine what the technology can do. De Leon’s advice to people who are uncertain about AI is to experiment with it, saying the best way to understand its capabilities is to try using it.