Join Us for the Hacks/Hackers AI x Journalism Summit 2025 (May 7–8)

Registration | Speakers | Sessions | Travel

The 2024 election campaign demonstrates that media disruption is only just beginning. And, with deregulation of all kinds promised by the Trump administration combined with the accelerating development of AI, there promises to be an explosion of new ways to deliver and consume information. The news media needs to fundamentally rethink what news and information products should be in the AI era , while journalists must develop expertise in investigating and reporting on how AI systems affect our communities, from automated decision-making to algorithmic bias.

In order to help journalists lead and thrive through this transformation, Hacks/Hackers and our host partners are convening the first-ever AI x Journalism Summit in Baltimore from May 7–8.

Host partners

Journalists, technologists and innovators will spend two days exploring how AI can enhance journalism and information. The Summit will include practical workshops, real-world case studies and collaborative sessions, all aimed at showing participants how to use AI to strengthen reporting, streamline workflows, create more impactful stories and build innovative news products.

There will be three tracks at the Summit, all focused on how AI is transforming journalism and intended to give reporters, editors, product managers and technologists practical skills and insights in the rapidly evolving media landscape.

Tracks

Using AI

Learn practical ways to incorporate leading AI tools into your workflow – from automated transcription and translation to using large language models for research and analysis. 

Building with AI

What do future media products look like when they leverage the power of generative AI? How will we reimagine user interfaces, discovery, distribution and monetization of news and information products?

Reporting on AI + Research

With AI getting integrated into more parts of everyone’s lives, journalists will play an essential role in documenting the effects of algorithms on society and holding institutions accountable.

Speakers

Speakers so far include: 

Aimee Rinehart
Aimee is the senior product manager AI strategy for The Associated Press. Before joining AP, she was the deputy director of First Draft's New York bureau helping journalists and newsrooms to identify, verify and report on mis- and disinformation through the 2018 and 2020 U.S. election cycles.

Alex Mahadevan
Alex is director of MediaWise, Poynter’s digital media literacy project that teaches people of all ages how to spot misinformation online. As director, Alex oversees program and curriculum development, research and editorial content for MediaWise, which has reached more than 80 million people in 12 countries. He follows and writes about the use of generative AI models in journalism and their potential to spread misinformation, and co-wrote Poynter’s AI ethics guide. Prior to joining the staff at Poynter, Alex worked as a data journalist at the personal finance startup The Penny Hoarder. Alex also served as the news innovation editor at Observer Media Group.

Amy Mitchell 
Amy is executive director of the Center For News, Technology & Innovation (CNTI). As past director of journalism research at Pew Research Center, Amy was responsible for the Center's research related to news and information.

Ashley Hebler
Ashley is an engineering manager at The Texas Tribune, where she leads a team of engineers building digital news products that enhance storytelling, audience engagement, and revenue strategies. With over a decade of experience in full-stack development, Ashley specializes in creating accessible, user-centered web applications and implementing AI-driven solutions to support journalists and newsroom operations.

Benjamin Toff
Ben is an Associate Professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Director of the Minnesota Journalism Center. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Center for the Study of Political Psychology and the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. He studies news audiences and political engagement, public opinion, and changing journalistic practices. He is the author of Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism (2024, Columbia University Press, with Ruth Palmer and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen). From 2020-2023, as Senior Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, he led a multi-country research project studying trust in news. 

Cheryl Phillips
Cheryl is the founder/co-director of Stanford University’s Big Local News, a data-sharing platform and computational collaborative in support of local journalism. She also is co-founder of the Stanford Open Policing Project, a cross-departmental effort to collect police interaction data and evaluate racial disparities. She is now part of the Community Law Enforcement Accountability Network, a national effort to collect, process and analyze police use of force and misconduct records. She teaches data and investigative journalism and has worked in numerous newsrooms, including The Seattle Times, USA TODAY, The Detroit News and newsrooms in Texas and Montana. During her time in Seattle, she twice covered breaking news that that received a Pulitzer Prize and twice worked on investigations that were Pulitzer finalists. Last year, Big Local News staff contributed to two Pulitzer finalist teams.

Courtney C. Radsch
Courtney is the Director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at Open Markets Institute where she produces and oversees research and helps design smart policy solutions focused on the political economy of AI, news media market structures and information power. Her research and analysis have been published in leading media outlets and scholarly journals. She has testified before congressional, parliamentary, and competition authorities around the world, offered strategic guidance to international organizations and leading civil society groups, and advised publishers and journalism leaders on AI and tech policy.

Darla Cameron
Darla is chief product officer for the Texas Tribune, guides product development and management, engineering and design. Prior to the Tribune, Cameron was at The Washington Post, where she used data to tell stories about politics, policy and the economy. Darla also worked in Florida at the Tampa Bay Times and completed a fellowship at the Poynter Institute.

Elite Truong
Elite (e-light) is the Vice President of Product Strategy at American Press Institute, where she manages data products that help local newsrooms make strategic decisions, Metrics for News and Source Matters. API’s mission is to unite communities and uphold democracy through rebuilding trust with local news organizations and supporting news leaders in doing so. She serves as the Board Secretary for News Product Alliance and is on the advisory board for Democracy Day. Formerly, she was the Director of Strategic Initiatives at The Washington Post and before Washington Post, Elite was the product manager for off-platform storytelling at Vox.

Greg Emerson
Greg is a journalist and digital strategist based in New York with experience throughout the newsroom. As a reporter, editor and newsroom manager he has written magazine features and overseen investigative projects (including Newsday's 2014 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Public Service). As a product manager and leader he has launched apps, built membership programs, and introduced new revenue streams at The Wall Street Journal, HuffPost and The Atlantic. He currently serves as product lead for the NPAI Co-Lab with the News Product Alliance.

Hilke Schellmann
Hilke is an Emmy award winning investigative reporter and assistant professor of journalism at New York University. As a contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, Schellmann writes about holding artificial intelligence (AI) accountable. In her book, The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired, And Why We Need To Fight Back (Hachette), she investigates the rise of AI in the world of work. Drawing on exclusive information from whistleblowers, internal documents and real‑world tests, Schellmann discovers that many of the algorithms making high‑stakes decisions are biased, racist, and do more harm than good. Her work has appeared in several publications including The Associated Press, The New York Times, VICE, HBO, PBS, TIME, ARD, ZDF, WNYC, National Geographic, The Guardian, Glamour, and The Atlantic.

Hong Qu
Hong is an adjunct lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School teaching data visualization courses. He also serves as a research fellow at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. Hong was one of the first engineers on YouTube’s startup team building key features such as video sharing, channels and skippable ads. He participated in the Berkman Klein Center and MIT Media Lab's 2019 Assembly program working together with a team of data scientists and civil society leaders to produce AI Blindspot. Hong serves on the board of The Lenfest Institute for Journalism.

Ian Kennedy
Ian has dedicated his career to news product development, from building news delivery networks in Tokyo to managing the first version of Factiva.com. His experience spans leadership roles at Six Apart, Yahoo, Nokia, Gigaom, and SmartNews, where he developed expertise in digital publishing and machine learning for content discovery. Currently at SimpleFeed, Kennedy Ian helps publishers syndicate stories across major platforms including Apple News, MSN, and NewsBreak.

Janet Coats
Janet is the managing director, Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology, at University of Florida. Coats has been at the forefront of the seismic shifts in journalism and information culture over the last 25 years. She’s led large multimedia news organizations, done groundbreaking work in civic engagement and reader outreach, and built her own consulting company focused on engagement and sustainability strategies for non-profit and entrepreneurial news organizations. Janet is the former Executive Director for Innovation and Strategy at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Janet has held leadership positions at The News Center in Tampa, The Sarasota (Florida) Hearld-Tribune and The Poynter Institute.

Justin Hendrix
Justin is the CEO and Editor of Tech Policy Press, a nonprofit media venture concerned with the intersection of technology and democracy. Previously, he was Executive Director of NYC Media Lab. He spent over a decade at The Economist in roles including Vice President, Business Development & Innovation. He is an associate research scientist and adjunct professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

Leon Yin
Leon is an award-winning journalist at Bloomberg News. He builds datasets and develops methods to investigate technology's impact on society. He teaches data journalism workshops and writes a practical guide called Inspect Element. In 2023, the series on Internet pricing disparities received a Philip Meyer Award recognizing the best uses of social science methods in journalism. Leon got his start in news at The Markup, and his start in research at NASA.

Kevin Hoffman
Kevin is an AI Engineer at The Philadelphia Inquirer, working in partnership with engineers at publications around the country to develop AI-based solutions with journalistic applications and principles in mind. After graduating from Ursinus College with a computer science degree, he continued research into explainable and ethical AI spaces to bolster kinesthetic educational materials on deep learning models. Before working with The Inquirer, Kevin served as Algorithm Engineer at TDI Novus aiding use of AI in robotics settings.

Marie Gilot
Marie is the Executive Director of J+, the professional training arm of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. J+'s international, hybrid programs include the AI Journalism Labs and the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership. Marie was previously a program officer at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami where she oversaw a portfolio of journalism and innovation grants. She started her career in journalism in El Paso, Texas.

Matt Boggie
Matt is the Chief Technology and Product Officer at The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is responsible for the technology and product strategy supporting The Inquirer's growth and sustainability, focusing on reaching young, diverse audiences and simplifying editorial workflow through better tooling. Throughout his career he has been a media innovator, serving as the second employee and founding CTO of Axios, Executive Director of the New York Times's R&D Lab, and as a consultant in Accenture's Media and Entertainment practice. Matt is a graduate of Boston University, where he earned a degree in computer science, and resides with his family in New York.

Max Resnik
Max is an organizer and network builder working in the connections between community, journalism, product and education. In his current role as the Director of Network Services at City Bureau, he's building the Documenters Network, an award-winning national network for grassroots, participatory media. Previously he worked for the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, the News Product Alliance and was recently an adjunct professor for NYU's Studio 20 masters program. 

Megan Gray 
Megan is a lawyer focused on Information, Internet, Innovation, and Intangibles. Within those fields, she has worked as corporate counsel, litigator, and lobbyist for startups, established companies, non-profit organizations, individuals, and trade associations. She has worked at the intersection of News Media and Technology since the first internet wave in the 1990's, helping legacy publishers operate in the new environment.  She has also worked extensively with copyright owners, lobbying to protect their rights in "orphan works" legislation pushed by well-funded interests and litigating infringement cases.  During her time as General Counsel and VP Public Policy at DuckDuckGo, she worked extensively with European, Australian, and international regulators on competition and content issues.  During the 2024 presidential election, she served on a small team as informal in-house counsel to address issues on Disinfo, AI, and Social Media.  Megan has her own law and policy firm, GrayMatters, in Washington, DC.

Niala Boodhoo
Niala is an American journalist, podcast and events host. You can hear her many Fridays on NPR stations hosting the Friday News Roundup on 1A. Currently the founder of Glad You’re Here Productions, she’s launched shows for public media and podcasts, including the flagship Axios daily news podcast Axios Today. Niala has also hosted live news events for organizations including Axios, Ascend at the Aspen Institute and the Religion News Service.

Nicholas Diakopoulos
Nick is a Professor in Communication Studies and Computer Science (by courtesy) at Northwestern University where he is Director of the Computational Journalism Lab (CJL). His research is broadly oriented around topics related to Computational Journalism with active research projects on AI, automation, and algorithms in news production and distribution. He also pursues research in the area of AI, Ethics, & Society with projects related to algorithmic accountability, transparency, and impact. He is the author of the award-winning book Automating the News: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Media from Harvard University Press.

Nicole Bleuel
Nicole is a mission-driven, 0-to-1 product thinker with a passion for developing and realizing creative solutions to complex problems. She is the co-founder of Collected Company, a consultancy helping organizations navigate and leverage AI.
Prior to founding Collected Company, Nicole spent 10 years at Google, where she led a special-projects team focused on launching key features and products and shaping Google’s AI strategy. Nicole's most fun accomplishments include creating a murder mystery party for friends, and promoting gender equality through emoji.

Nikita Roy
Nikita is a data scientist, journalist, and Harvard-recognized AI futurist. She is currently a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists, focusing on AI literacy in the news industry. She leads the AI Journalism Lab and serves on the AI advisory board at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. She also leads the development of the AI Discovery Course at JournalismAI at Polis – the journalism think tank at the London School of Economics.

Paris Brown
Paris is the publisher of The Baltimore Times, leverages her 25 years of business development and marketing experience to drive digital transformation and revenue growth. Paris led the shift to a digital-first approach, significantly increasing digital revenue through innovative campaigns and advanced technologies like AI, VR, and AR to create content to engage diverse audiences. Paris focuses on strengthening partnerships and providing integrated solutions across print and digital platforms. Notable initiatives include the Creatively Black Baltimore arts exhibition, partnerships with the Maryland Cycling Classic, and transforming newspaper boxes into promotional billboards, ensuring The Baltimore Times remains a vital community voice and partner. She serves on the National Marketing Committee, National Newspaper Publishers Association Board of Directors, and Mid-Atlantic Community Publishers Association. She is a Newmark J+ Social Impact Fellow.

Patrick Boehler
Patrick is the founder of Gazzetta, a Tallinn and New York-based media research lab that focuses on autocratic settings. He previously led Radio Free Europe's digital transformation, establishing its audience research, marketing, and product departments, along with its journalism Academy and Innovation Lab. His experience spans executive newsroom roles, award-winning reporting for The New York Times and South China Morning Post, co-founding the Environmental Reporting Collective, and teaching at the University of Hong Kong. Boehler holds a doctorate in political science and was a 2023 Sulzberger Executive Leadership Fellow at Columbia University.

Patrick Swanson
Patrick is co-founder of Verso, a consulting lab specialized in AI integration for newsrooms and media organizations. As a 2023-24 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, he researched  applications of AI in journalism and developed prototypes for newsroom tools. Previously, Patrick founded and led the social media team at Austrian Public Broadcasting (ORF), building it into Austria's largest digital news source for young audiences. A dual Austrian-American citizen, Patrick works with media organizations across the United States and Europe.

Rubina Madan Fillion
Rubina is the Associate Editorial Director of A.I. Initiatives at The New York Times. She’s part of a cross-disciplinary team that leverages generative artificial intelligence and other forms of machine learning for the benefit of journalists and audiences, while ensuring the responsible use of these technologies. Previously, Rubina served as the Director of Strategy for New York Times Opinion, the Director of Audience for Times Opinion, the founding Director of Audience Engagement at The Intercept and the Social Media Editor at the Wall Street Journal. She has taught graduate-level digital journalism courses at Columbia University and New York University. Rubina served on the board of directors of the Online News Association and The Deadline Club.

Sawyer Bernath
Sawyer is Operations Director at the nonprofit Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, which supports journalism that helps society navigate the emergence of increasingly advanced AI. He was previously Executive Director at BERI, a nonprofit organization that supports academic research working to reduce existential risk from emerging technologies. He also serves as a board member for FAR.AI and SecureBio.

Scott Klein
Scott is a leader in journalism and technology, known for driving innovative projects that empower newsrooms and engage communities. At Automattic, he led the creation of the Knight Election Hub, connecting over 500 newsrooms with tools and services to enhance 2024 election coverage. Previously, he directed product development at New York City’s largest nonprofit newsroom, overseeing platform migrations, interactive data journalism, and AI-driven news applications. At ProPublica, he managed teams focused on editorial product development and data storytelling, leading groundbreaking initiatives like Electionland, which supported local journalists covering voting rights, and Documenting Hate, which tracked the rise of hate crimes in the U.S. His work bridges journalism and technology to create impactful tools and stories.

Shicheng (George) Liu
Shicheng (George) is currently a third-year CS Ph.D. at Stanford. He is advised by Prof. Monica S. Lam at Stanford Open Virtual Assistant Lab (OVAL). He focuses on real-life, practical NLP problems, often drawing perspectives from computer systems and programming languages. His recent research focuses on knowledge agents with LLMs, aiming to enable domain-independent approaches that effectively retrieve and navigate different sources of knowledge, including structured, unstructured, and hybrid (combination of structured and unstructured data) sources.

Subramaniam (Subbu) Vincent
Subbu is the Director of Journalism and Media Ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. He specializes in journalistic sourcing policies and standards and the role of ethics in media technology including AI and news distribution. His projects include benchmarking LLMs for journalism ethics, source diversity tracking, and the News Distribution Ethics Roundtable. He has also conducted training and consulting on open-source intelligence ethics, news feed algorithm design, decision-making on political ads for local news organizations, and responsible coverage of mass shootings.

Tazbia Fatima
Tazbia is a newsroom AI and automation engineer at Hearst DevHub, where she builds AI-powered tools and reader experiences to support local newsrooms. Previously an AI and data fellow at The City, she developed generative AI prototypes for audience engagement and editorial data analysis. A recipient of the 2024 Magic Grant from the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, Fatima holds a dual master’s degree in journalism and computer science from Columbia University.

Teo Soares
Teo is an AI expert and builder dedicated to making cutting-edge technologies accessible and impactful for organizations beyond the traditional tech sphere. He is a co-founder of Collected Company, a consultancy helping organizations navigate and leverage AI. Prior to founding Collected Company, Teo spent nearly a decade at Google, where he most recently served as a Senior Product Manager for the Gemini API, the company’s flagship generative AI model. Teo began his career as a journalist, contributing to local news in Dallas and the Columbia Journalism Review. Originally from Brazil, he now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and many plants.

Thomas Gerrity
Thomas is a data scientist and product manager for DigitalDemocracy. Before joining CalMatters, he was employed as a software engineer by the Institute for the Advancement of Technology and Public Policy (IATPP) at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Since 2018, he has worked with Cal Poly faculty members and students in developing automated systems for surfacing news from legislative data. Born and raised on the central coast of California, Thomas has a Masters in Computer Science from Cal Poly.

Vania Andre
Vania is the Chief Operating Officer and Editor-in-Chief of The Haitian Times, a trailblazing media outlet founded in 1999 in Brooklyn, New York. Under her leadership, The Haitian Times has evolved from a local weekly publication to a globally recognized brand, chronicling the vibrant Haitian community across borders. In addition to her pivotal role at The Haitian Times, Vania serves as an Assistant Professor of Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations at The Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University. Vania is also the Principal and Founder of MUSER, a full-service creative agency specializing in integrated branding, marketing, and public relations campaigns. She’s also held roles at the nonprofit newsroom THE CITY; Public Agenda, a nonpartisan think tank that looks to strengthen democracy nationally; and New York City Council.

Virginia Mace Fletcher
Virginia is an accomplished technology and product executive with nearly three
decades of experience leading innovation, transformation, and growth across industries including media, EdTech, healthcare, and financial services. As CTO and CPO at Lee Enterprises, she’s driving its AI-first transformation, launching platforms for small-to-medium business and forming strategic partnerships with AWS, Perplexity, and ProRata.ai. She previously led global teams at 2U and Stride, delivering award-winning platforms like edX Xpert and K12 Zone. With engineering and computer science degrees, executive training from Booth, and certifications in Six Sigma and AI, she blends deep technical expertise with strategic leadership.

Sessions

Programming for the Summit is still in progress, please check back for updates. As well, follow #HHAIJournalism2025 for updates.

Using AI

Digital Democracy at CalMatters: Covering State Legislatures With the Help of AI
What if you had an easy way to analyze every word, action, and dollar related to your local legislators? CalMatters, in partnership with the California Polytechnic State University, has built an AI enhanced system to glean vast amounts of data from legislative hearing videos, websites, third party sources and then generate ranked tip sheets for reporters to help identify newsworthy events. This session will explain the system which extracts legislative hearing data, how we use AI to turn that data into possible story ideas for reporters, and how LLMs can be used to safely generate AI tip sheets.
- Thomas Gerrity, Digital Democracy Engineering Manager, CalMatters

Lessons from The City: Using AI to Map Coverage Blind Spots
Do your newsroom’s coverage choices reflect the diversity of the community you cover? Generative AI can help you answer that question better than ever before. In 2023, THE CITY used ChatGPT to analyze its entire archive of more than 4,000 stories and to identify the New York City neighborhoods it covers, and presented the results on a map of the city. In this session, two of the people who worked on the project will walk you through their process and share how you can apply the technique to your own archive.
- Scott Klein, Entrepreneur in Residence, Automattic
- Tazbia Fatima, Newsroom AI and Automation Engineer, Hearst Newspaper

AI for Local Impact: Lessons from The Texas Tribune
While many AI tools pitched to newsrooms miss the mark, The Texas Tribune's tech team has developed solutions that address real challenges in covering a large, complex state. This session explores how the Tribune creates practical, ethical AI tools to make journalism more accessible and impactful across Texas, sharing key lessons in building technology that enhances local journalism while maintaining trust and editorial standards.
- Darla Cameron, Chief Product Officer, The Texas Tribune

Participatory Civic Journalism - Documenters with AI support
Across the country, thousands of residents are trained and paid to attend local public meetings, take notes and contribute to civic journalism in partnership with nonprofit news organizations, libraries, universities and civic organizations. Join us to learn how City Bureau and our network of partners are supporting local civic reporting with AI tools and leave with a set of tools you can use to begin mapping your local government meetings and planning for introducing participatory civic journalism to your community
- Max Resnik, Director of Network Services, City Bureau

Making an AI tool that people will actually use 
In January 2025, The Philadelphia Inquirer began a project to build a Gen AI-powered archive search tool to support our reporters’ and editors’ research needs. While the project is in its early stages, we have already delivered tools that significantly shorten archival research timelines, identify photos from descriptions and story relationships, and automatically update as our report evolves.  =Along the way we have learned several lessons about how Generative AI interactions differ from search and retrieval techniques users have been trained on. We need to break from our existing UI habits and patterns, and establish trust in a system when it might inherently create errors. With Kevin Hoffman, AI Engineer for the Inquirer, we will demonstrate the tool, show how the user experience was iterated and improved upon, discuss the ways that researchers will use AI tools differently than traditional workflows, and preview next steps and open questions we still have yet to tackle.
- Matt Boggie, Chief Technology and Product Officer, The Philadelphia Inquirer
- Kevin Hoffman, AI Engineer, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Building with AI

Maslow’s toolbox: A framework for understanding and prioritizing problems that could—or shouldn’t—be solved by AI
Maslow’s saying goes: “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” With all the excitement, emphasis and wariness around AI as a tool for journalists, it’s difficult to remember where to start to solve problems. Join VP of product strategy at American Press Institute and former emerging technologies editor at The Washington Post, Elite Truong, in this workshop, where you’ll think through your organization’s biggest problems and center them first. Then, you’ll learn a framework to evaluate how AI can and can’t help solve the most important your newsroom has, identify reporting, production and administrative bottlenecks without distracting from your newsroom’s top editorial and audience goals, and remember that you can benefit from having a robust toolbox that can solve those problems in many different ways, even when certain tools are highlighted.
- Elite Truong, VP Product Strategy, American Press Institute

Red Team: AI Threat Assessment for Modern Newsrooms
Presented by News Product Alliance
As newsrooms adopt AI-powered tools to enhance editorial workflows and better serve their audiences, they open themselves up to new risks around protecting sensitive user data and adhering to strong ethics policies. Understanding the potential ways these tools can impact news organization’s relationships with their users is crucial to ensure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past: Relying on tech companies to protect the values of good journalism. This workshop will introduce the concept of 'red teaming' – a practice used in cybersecurity to find weaknesses in software before it is launched – and will guide participants through the process with a hands-on exercise to identify risks and help newsrooms of all kinds build more robust AI strategies and policies.
- Greg Emerson, Product lead, NPA

Building AI Agents for Journalism: From Idea to Automated Workflow
Learn to create your own AI monitoring system through a case study tracking presidential executive orders. This session shows how to combine Google AI Studio and Zapier to build an AI agent workflow that automatically scrapes government publications, analyzes their constitutional implications, and organizes findings into a Google Sheet—all without coding expertise. You'll see how to establish real-time connections between data sources, configure generative AI for document analysis, and create dynamic configurable workflows that free you to focus on reporting rather than routine monitoring. Whether you cover politics, courts, business, or any beat with recurring, time-sensitive documents and data, you'll leave with practical steps to build similar automated systems for your own reporting needs.
- Hong Qu, Adjunct Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School

Designing AI for Journalism: Understanding the Tech, Applying the Thinking
Building with AI requires both technical understanding and thoughtful design. Nicole and Teo, decades-long Google veterans who have worked on Search and the Gemini API, will break down how generative AI works, introduce key design thinking principles, and explore how the two come together in AI-driven innovation. This session will provide a practical foundation for leveraging AI while keeping human needs at the center.
- Teo Soares, Co-Founder, Collected Company
- Nicole Bleuel, Co-Founder, Collected Company

Guardrails & Guidelines: Building AI Systems the Audience Can Trust
Join Ben Toff, associate professor at the University of Minnesota's Hubbard School of Journalism, and Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise at Poynter, for a workshop on building trust and safety guardrails in AI systems for journalism. This hands-on workshop will explore practical approaches to content moderation, preventing misuse, and establishing ethical guidelines for AI in newsrooms. Learn from their research and experience in creating responsible AI frameworks while maintaining journalistic integrity and public trust. 
- Alex Mahadevan, Director of MediaWise, Poynter
-Ben Toff, Associate Professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Director of the Minnesota Journalism Center

From Papers to Podcasts: Meet the AI That Reads Research
(So You Don't Have To)
Drowning in AI research papers? We were too. In this session, Patrick Swanson of Verso will demonstrate how we built an AI-powered system that turns hundreds of academic papers every day into engaging podcast episodes—without sacrificing human judgment. You'll learn how we combined multiple AI models based on their strengths, kept costs super-low ($0.15 per episode!), and discover practical ways to apply similar methods for local news, government monitoring, or specialized content creation. Join us for a live demo and expand your organization's storytelling potential.
- Patrick Swanson, Co-founder, Verso

Conversations & Reporting on AI

How to Become a Better Manager with AI
Explore how AI is reshaping managerial roles and decision-making processes in newsrooms and media organizations. In this panel, instructors and participants in the AI Journalism Lab: Leadership will share the specific techniques and tools that helped them leverage AI effectively in their leadership with confidence and foresight.
- Marie Gilot, Executive Director J+, ​​Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
- Rubina Fillion, Associate Director of A.I Initiative, The New York  Times
- Vania André, Chief Operating Officer and Editor-in-Chief, The Haitian Times
- Paris M. Brown, Publisher, The Baltimore Times

Taking AGI Seriously: What's Happening at the Frontier of AI and What Journalists Can Do About It
People working at frontier AI companies say they're trying to build computers that can do everything humans can do. While they may fail, journalists should take seriously the possibility that they may succeed. What would it mean for society if human-level AI was developed and deployed? From scrutinizing policy proposals, to focusing the public debate on important topics, to investigating the actions of AI companies, journalists have a critical role to play in making advanced AI go well.
- Sawyer Bernath, Operations Director, Tarbell Center for AI Journalism

AI Culture Shift: From Resistance to Results
Presented by ONA
Drawing from successful newsroom transformations, learn proven strategies for building AI acceptance and adoption. Explore change management approaches that address fears, build skills, and create lasting cultural shifts

AI Policies vs Practice: Mind the Global Gap
From US AI executive orders to EU regulation, how do emerging policies shape AI practices worldwide? Experts examine regulatory impacts on innovation, cross-border challenges, and practical implementation realities and what does all of this mean for journalism?
- Justin Hendrix, CEO & Editor, Tech Policy Press
- Amy Mitchell, Executive Director, Center for News, Technology & Innovation
- Niala Boodhoo, Founder, Glad You're Here

How to hold AI accountable.
AI is everywhere and reporters are finding new ways to hold AI tools accountable. This panel showcases original investigations into predictive and generative AI tools (and how we used AI in some cases to do this work). We will also make the case that our investigations should inform the procurement of AI products newsrooms buy for their own reporters. 
- Hilke Schellmann, Assistant Professor of Journalism and AI Expert, NYU
- Leon Yin, Investigative Data Journalists, Bloomberg News

The Economics of AI Content: Building Sustainable Models for Journalism
As artificial intelligence reshapes the media landscape, one of the most pressing questions facing journalism is how to build sustainable economic models that fairly compensate news organizations and journalists while enabling AI innovation. This panel brings together leaders from both traditional media and AI technology to explore the challenges and opportunities in creating viable business models for AI-powered journalism.
- Courtney Radsch, Co-Director, Center for Journalism & Liberty at Open Markets Institute
- Virginia Fletcher, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer, Lee Enterprises
- Aimee Rinehart, Senior Product Manager AI strategy, Associated Press

From Pilots to Performance: Measuring AI's Real Impact in Newsrooms
Leading AI researchers Nicholas Diakopoulos and Nikita Roy present evidence-based approaches for evaluating AI in journalism. Drawing from extensive newsroom studies, learn actionable frameworks for measuring AI effectiveness, identifying success metrics, and addressing key challenges.
- Nicholas Diakopoulos, Professor, Northwestern University
- Nikita Roy, ICFJ Knight Fellow & Founder of Newsroom Robots Labs

Request For Comment: HTML Markup for LLM Crawlers, Tracking Provenance in the Age of AI
LLMs, AI chatbots, and agents are poised to disrupt how readers interact with content written stories, potentially making websites obsolete as information gets mediated through AI interfaces. This mirrors how online advertising unbundled editorial packaging and presentation content and eroded publisher value. How can journalists protect their voice and receive compensation payment when their work flows through AI systems? We need methods to track content usage across these new ecosystems and create viable information marketplaces. Join this group discussion drawing on past lessons to build better systems for the future to explore practical solutions that embrace technological change rather than resist it.
- Ian Kennedy, VP, Partner Success, SimpleFeed

Research & Tools Showcase

AI-Powered Audience Research: From Data to Insights
Learn how Gazzetta's research team used AI tools to understand information needs in China, developing scalable methods for global audience research. Through practical examples, discover how AI can accelerate pattern recognition and enhance traditional research methods.
- Patrick Boehler, Founder, Gazzetta

Watch Your Language: AI and Bias Detection
Research at the University of Florida focusing on language use in news coverage identified common word choices that can convey unintended bias. Based on this research, Janet and her team developed a machine-learning tool journalists can use to make more intentional, precise language choices.
- Janet Coats, Managing Director, Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications

Building an Open-Source AI Agent for World Wide Knowledge
Based on  research from Stanford University's Monica Lam, this session explores how an open-source, public assistant for World Wide Knowledge can elevate AI applications in journalism. Through live demonstrations and practical discussion, learn how this open-source approach to AI creates a sustainable infrastructure for local news organizations.
- Cheryl Phillips, Founder/co-director, Stanford University’s Big Local News
- Shicheng Liu, Doctor of Philosophy, PhD, Computer Science, Stanford University

Source Detective: Using LLMs to Analyze Journalistic Attribution Patterns
Explore how large language models are revolutionizing the analysis of source attribution in journalism. This session demonstrates how advanced prompt engineering can help newsrooms systematically examine their sourcing practices, from expert citations to anonymous sources. Subbu Vincent, Director of Journalism and Media Ethics, Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics will share new research benchmarking different LLMs' abilities to extract and analyze attribution patterns, with practical applications for both individual reporters and newsroom-wide content analysis. Join us to see how this technology could transform source diversity tracking, ethical reporting practices, and the distinction between various forms of journalism through their sourcing patterns.
- Subbu Vincent, Director of Journalism and Media Ethics, Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Registration

• Tuesday May 6: A reception the evening before the conference hosted by The Baltimore Banner from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• Wednesday May 7: First day of the summit. Programming starts at 10 am and ends at 5 pm. An on-site reception starts 6:00 pm and ends at 7:30 pm
• Thursday May 8: Second day of the summit. Starts at 10 am and ends at 4:30 pm.
• Where: The Real News Network, Baltimore
• Cost:
  • Standard ticket before May 2: $7o
  • Late or Onsite ticket: $150
  • Student: $25

Travel

Where is the event?
The Real News Network’s offices, located at 231 N. Holliday St., Baltimore, MD 21202. Look for the movie marquee that marks the building entrance.

How do I get there?

• Train: For people along or near Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, this likely is the easiest and most cost-effective way to get to Baltimore. Baltimore’s Penn Station is less than a 10 minute car ride from the conference venue.
• Air: Baltimore’s BWI airport is the closest major airport, located less than a 30 minute drive from the conference venue.
• Car: Driving is also possible, although the parking downtown near the conference venue is in a public parking lot. It’s $1 per hour.

Where should I stay?
We have reserved limited room blocks at the following hotels:

• Hotel Ulysses for $89 (before tax) per night: An affordable boutique hotel with exuberant design in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. This is a 17 minute walk or 4 minute drive from the conference venue, and a 14 minute walk or 5 minute drive from the train station. 
• Canopy by Hilton Baltimore Harbor Point for $239 (before tax) per night: A prime location along the water. The hotel is about a 12 minute drive from the conference venue. This is a quick walk to Fell’s Point, which provides access to a great walk with plenty of restaurants and nightlife. 
• Springhill Suites Baltimore Downtown / Inner Harbor for $149 (before tax) per night: A 8-minute walk away from the conference venue. 

Is there any financial assistance?
Yes, we have a limited budget for travel stipends generously supported by American Journalism Project and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Please only apply if you do not have other financial support from your organization, company, grants or other funding sources. These stipends are intended to help those who would otherwise be unable to attend due to financial constraints. Apply using this form.

Sponsors