This text is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a publication that helps you uncover probably the most helpful websites and apps.
The latest International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy drew 2,000+ journalists, together with 526 speakers, for 4 days of dialog about what’s subsequent for our subject. It was probably the most vibrant conferences I’ve attended.
I spoke on a panel about how journalism coaching evolves when AI does entry-level work. I additionally attended 15 different classes. 5 concepts caught with me, every about how journalism could be extra human, extra sustainable, and extra creative, even because the trade contracts.
Dwell Journalism Resonates
Madrid-based Diario Vivo places journalists and peculiar folks on stage to inform private tales. Nothing is recorded. It’s pure human storytelling.
Audiences don’t know what tales they’ll hear after they arrive at a present. Founder Vanessa Rousselot says the format is designed to make folks chortle and cry and to revive belief between journalists and the general public. Diario Vivo started in 2017 with 100 folks within the viewers. Now they promote out 1,000-seat venues. Greater than 25,000 folks have seen their reveals up to now, in numerous cities.
Correctiv, a German nonprofit newsroom, turns its investigations into theater carried out by skilled actors. Editor in chief Jean Peters says Correctiv is constructing a community of fifty+ theaters throughout Europe to distribute journalistic productions. Correctiv’s writer, David Schraven, estimated that every two-hour theater efficiency is “equal to three.6 million seconds spent on TikTok, however with a a lot larger affect.”
These initiatives comply with within the custom of Pop-Up Magazine, which launched in California in 2009 and hosted sold-out reveals for tens of hundreds of individuals round North America till closing in 2023 after the pandemic devastated their enterprise. Diario Vivo, Correctiv and others at the moment are reviving the live journalism movement.
Nonprofit Newsrooms Can Thrive
5 non-profit information leaders shared methods which can be truly working:
- ProPublica has 90,000 particular person donors, making certain that they’re not counting on anybody wealthy particular person’s whims. They’re on eleven totally different platforms and have partnered with a whole bunch of publishers, from the New York Occasions to NPR. They’re now creating a Local Reporting Network.
- The 19th‘s founder and CEO Emily Ramshaw raised a $30 million endowment in six months. She began out by sending 100 chilly messages per week to rich folks. She focused non-traditional information philanthropists like ladies’s rights donors. Now she’s aiming to boost a complete of $100 to $200 million to place the group on robust footing for the long term. She joked that her $75 Instagram verification and $1,000 LinkedIn Professional accounts have been her most dear investments for donor cultivation.
- The Center for Investigative Reporting merged with Mother Jones to increase from documentary movie and audio to a broader digital media portfolio. CEO Monika Bauerlein mentioned the newsroom hit 50 million video views within the first three months of 2026. Her recommendation to nonprofit leaders: “Recover from your attachment to the way you used to do issues.”
- Memphis-based MLK50 has a tagline of “Justice By means of Journalism.” They pursue tales with a direct monetary affect on the lives of locals, like companies profiting from the poor. They belong to 2 organizations that assist a whole bunch of impartial newsrooms: the Institute for Nonprofit News and the Local Independent Online News publishers.
AI That Really Helps Reporters
The Lenfest Institute’s two-year fellowship program has embedded AI engineers throughout the nation. Greater than 50 initiatives at the moment are in improvement throughout 11 metro newsrooms.
Kevin Hoffman, an AI Engineer at The Philadelphia Inquirer, mentioned he was stunned how rapidly some initiatives have taken flight. With AI help, improvement that may as soon as have taken a yr can now be performed in a number of months.
- The Philadelphia Inquirer has been publishing for greater than 190 years, however their archives have at all times been tough to navigate. So that they launched Dewey to make it simple for staffers to seek out something. Additionally they constructed Scout, a neighborhood media aggregator that helped reporters reduce down the 15 hours per week they spent gathering data for native newsletters. Fairly than simply scraping what they wanted, they sought permission from native publishers.
- The Seattle Times constructed an AI software that transcribes metropolis council conferences and routinely notifies beat reporters when their matters come up. Additionally they developed an AI prospecting tool for their sales team. One salesperson used the software to discover a new advertiser, then pitched and closed a deal the identical day.
One Journalist. 5 Movies a Week
Dave Jorgensen, who constructed the Washington Submit’s TikTok account into one of many most-followed within the trade, left final yr to launch Local News International, a video startup. Jorgensen researches, scripts, shoots, and edits 5 movies per week. Every takes a full day, together with in depth analysis and fact-checking.
He and a group of former Washington Submit collaborators hit 330,000 YouTube subscribers inside 10 months. His most-viewed video: a 30-second clip about negotiations over Egyptian rockets, with 45 million views.
Income comes from YouTube adverts, brand partnerships, and video strategy consulting. Jorgensen has a knack for explaining the information with a lightweight contact. “Humor is a very highly effective software,” Jorgensen mentioned, “as a result of it’s getting folks vital info… they could by no means have clicked on or engaged with.”
Hype Literacy for Journalists
A gaggle of worldwide researchers specializing in “hype studies” challenged standard narratives round AI. They analyzed 231 AI benchmarks and 138 mannequin releases in 2025. They discovered that almost all AI benchmarks aren’t impartial measures. They’re firm self-tests. 63% of benchmarks have been utilized by solely a single mannequin, and 41% by just one firm. The researchers questioned whether or not journalists ought to settle for AI firms’ metrics at face worth, somewhat than creating impartial assessments.
As a result of hype facilities round claims concerning the future, it’s exhausting to critique. You possibly can’t fact-check far-off predictions, however you may establish inflated claims and level out hidden assumptions. The toolkit helps element how hype shapes public notion, and the way journalists can step out of the hype cycle.
This text is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a publication that helps you uncover probably the most helpful websites and apps.
