Magic Grant Information Session (Stanford)
2025-03-20 16:00 - 18:00, 2025-04-01 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Brown Institute at Stanford (CoDa Building, E301), 389 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA, 94305, United States
The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford are delighted to announce its 2025-2026 Magic Grant program. Applications are due April 3, 2025.
To provide more information about our grants and the application process, the Brown Institute is hosting Magic Grant Information Sessions on the following dates:

March 13, 2025
March 20, 2025
April 1, 2025

Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants and fellowships to foster new tools and modes of expression, and to create stories that escape the bounds of page and screen. We are committed to radical experimentation with the potential to define new priorities and practices for both engineering and journalism.
The “Magic Grant” program provides year-long funding awards ranging from $10,000 to $150,000 (up to $300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities). In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group, support for professional development, and connections to an extensive and inspiring alumni network.
If you’re interested in learning more about our Magic Grant offerings, come to our upcoming information session where you can find out:

The types of projects we’re interested in supporting
The various types of support we offer to grantees & fellows
Eligibility guidelines
How our staff can help you develop your proposal
How to apply

If you have any questions, write to us at brown_institute@stanford.edu

Magic Grant Information Session (Columbia)
2025-03-31 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford are delighted to announce its 2025-2026 Magic Grant program. Applications are due April 3, 2025! To provide more information about our grants and the application process, the Brown Institute is hosting Magic Grant Information Sessions.
Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants to help you “follow your passion and experiment with new approaches to storytelling,” to paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown.
Our “Magic Grants” are a unique blend of technology and media. Grantees develop new ways to find and tell stories — producing platforms that extend our creativity, or creating powerful new works of journalism.

A Magic Grant can mean financial support for you and your team for up to a year (fellowships at Columbia, research positions at Stanford)
A Magic Grant can provide funding for your project — for production, prototyping, or purchasing services, software or equipment
A Magic Grant offers access to mentorship and our extensive alumni network

The Magic Grant program provides year-long funding awards of up to $150,000 ($300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities and their collaborators). In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group, and an extensive and inspiring alumni network.
If you’re interested in learning more about our Magic Grant offerings, come to our upcoming information session where you can find out:

The types of projects we’re interested in supporting
The various types of support we offer to grantees & fellows
Eligibility guidelines
How our staff can help you develop your proposal
How to apply

If you have any questions, write to us at browninstitute@columbia.edu.

AI Club at CJS
2025-09-15 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Welcome to the Columbia Journalism School AI Club! We meet every other Monday in the Brown Institute (1st floor Pulitzer Hall).
Sign up to Join
For Session I – Analyzing Data With AI, the Tow Center’s Prof. Dhrumil Mehta and the Brown Institute’s Michael Krisch will introduce their respective centers. Then we’ll spend a bit of time analyzing some data with the help of AI. Finally, we’ll field your questions and solicit input about what you’d like to get from the club this year!

Brown Institute and Tow Center Welcome Mixer
2025-09-19 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The Brown Institute and Tow Center serve as a digital hub at the school, researching and building the future of journalism. Join us in the Brown Institute to meet with researchers and staff from both organizations, and learn more about the various opportunities and offerings afforded to students during their time at the Journalism School as well as upon graduation.
Nibbles and drinks will be provided.

AI Club at CJS
2025-09-29 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-10-27 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-11-10 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-11-24 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Welcome to the Columbia Journalism School AI Club! We meet every other Monday in the Brown Institute (1st floor Pulitzer Hall).
Sign up to Join

AI Club at CJS
2025-10-15 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Welcome to the Columbia Journalism School AI Club! For this session, we will walk through the various approaches to using NotebookLM — followed by our session in two weeks which will be focused on RAG and open source models.
Sign up to Join

Brown Institute Showcase
2025-10-22 17:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Simonyi Conference Center, CoDa at Stanford University, 389 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA, 94305, United States
Maneesh Agrawala and Mark Hansen cordially invite you to the Brown Institute for Media Innovation’s Annual Showcase!
Join us for a reception starting at 5PM on October 22, 2025 in the Simonyi Conference Center in the CoDa building at Stanford University.
Register to Attend
The event features a mix of engineers, technologists, journalists and media producers, all funded through the 2024-25 Magic Grant program.
alphaXiv, led by students at Stanford, has created a discussion platform layered directly on top of arXiv’s 2.4 million academic papers — breaking down barriers between curious students and distinguished researchers by enabling real-time Q&A and collaboration on cutting-edge research.
Another team from Columbia University, Improper Conduct, has utilized large language models to build the first-of-its-kind public database tracking prosecutorial misconduct during criminal trials. Their pilot in Ohio has already identified patterns of improper and at times illegal behavior, and they’re working to incorporate AI tools that can help watchdog journalists expose judicial abuses nationwide.
Measuring Silence on Social Media, a project led by students at Stanford, is conducting a broad census of what perspectives are systematically under- or over-represented across online communities. Using a novel human + AI pipeline that leverages large language models and survey methods, they’re quantifying the silencing effect to reveal whose voices go unheard in digital spaces.
And Justice Delayed, an investigative project from Columbia, is addressing India’s staggering backlog of nearly 50 million court cases, cataloging long-pending criminal cases across 650+ district courts to equip journalists in remote regions with tools to scrutinize every aspect of their local criminal justice systems.
Read about the entire cohort projects presenting at the 2025 showcase event.
We hope you can join us!
Established in 2012, the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute is a collaboration between Columbia University and Stanford University, designed to encourage and support new endeavors in media innovation. At Stanford, the primary focus is on media technology, and the Institute is anchored in the School of Engineering. At Columbia, the primary focus is on content, and the Institute is anchored in the Graduate School of Journalism.

Data Visualization Workshop with The Pudding
2025-11-01 10:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Graphical (or pictorial) presentations of data have become an almost essential part of journalistic practice. Data visualization helps us see patterns in data and is an important tool for finding stories. Over the past decade, major outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, and Reuters have been publishing data visualizations that push the idea of storytelling, creating new data-driven ways to inform and entertain. Alongside these graphics are newsrooms based entirely on data visualization, including the Kontinentalist and The Pudding.
In this day-long workshop co-sponsored by the Brown Institute and Barnard Vagelos Computational Science Center, members of The Pudding will immerse participants in their tried-and-true design process, segmented into four stages: story, data, design, and development.
In the week leading up to the workshop, accepted participants will be asked to embark on a creative journey to collect data about the NYC subway system. This data might be methodical and sourced from the MTA turnstile API, capturing the flow of commuters through the city. Or it could be more personal and observational—hand-documented notes from your daily treks, sketches of the subway’s unique quirks, maps of broken lights, or a visual catalog of tile murals across stations. Inspired by the work of Denis Wood, who mapped his neighborhood in surprising ways, and Giorgia Lupi, known for blending data and personal stories, we encourage you to be creative! Use whatever tools come natural to you, whether it’s pen and paper, a spreadsheet, or a snippet of code. Every one of us has a unique story shaped by these subterranean journeys, and we can’t wait to see what data you find interesting and valuable. Do not spend more than an hour or two on this effort.
The session will begin with Story, a throughline that should resonate with all participants of the program. As we’ve all experienced, the strongest visualizations are those with equally strong narratives. Diving deeper, students will be introduced to the realm of Data. Using curated datasets around key topics, students will seek to uncover the nuances of integrating specific, meaningful data with their narratives. The emphasis then shifts to the visual canvas, focusing on the core elements of Design. The goal is to ensure that every story is captivating both visually and narratively. And culminating the day is a glimpse into Development. While the intricacies of programming might remain in the backdrop, attendees will understand and appreciate the development scaffolding that turns their narratives and designs into dynamic interactive features.
Apply to Attend
This workshop will only be able to accommodate 24 students. Applications are due by midnight on Friday, October 17. Notices will be sent out on Monday, October 20.

About the Presenters
Caitlyn Ralph is the Studio Director at The Pudding’s in-house data journalism agency called Polygraph, where we do the same type of visual storytelling work with the same team for different brands and organizations. Her BA is in Computer Science, her MS is in Data Viz, and her prior professional experience is in magazine journalism. She spends her working days explaining this practice as clearly as possible to clients with varying backgrounds, managing projects and the team, and crafting future strategy for both Polygraph and its sister publication The Pudding. She spends her non-working days running, taking film pictures, and on a K-pop group called Stray Kids.
Alvin Chang is an assistant professor of Journalism and Design at the New School. He’s a data and visual journalist who has worked in several newsrooms, most recently as Head of Visuals and Data at Guardian US. His work as a journalist often combines deep reporting with data analysis to help readers clearly understand the world around them. His stories often show how small decisions accrue into invisible problems like discrimination, segregation, and ultimately dehumanization. And he makes those things visible using data viz, interactives, cartoons, and videos.

Decentralized Futures Hackathon
2025-11-08 10:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
What might creative infrastructure look like if it were designed not by centralized, algorithmic platforms, but by the communities who use it?
The Decentralized Futures Hackathon is part of an art-driven series of experiments to reimagine creative infrastructure. Over the course of one day, participants will prototype new ways of working that expand both self-reliance and community reliance:

Self-reliance → the ability of individuals (artists, technologists, participants) to create, share, and sustain their work without being fully dependent on centralized platforms, institutions, or gatekeepers. It points toward empowerment: learning the skills, building the tools, and developing the practices to stand on your own.
Community reliance → the recognition that creative work is not done in isolation, but thrives through networks of mutual support. It means designing systems where communities can depend on one another – sharing resources, knowledge, and care – rather than relying on opaque algorithms or extractive platforms.

Fields of creative practice are being reshaped by advances in artificial intelligence, specifically – from generative tools that alter how art is produced and distributed, to algorithmic systems that structure visibility and value. The hackathon will be a space to confront these transformations directly.
Artists, technologists, storytellers, designers, and community builders will come together to imagine and build experimental projects that reconfigure how we connect, collaborate, and sustain creative practice.
Decentralized Futures is an ongoing initiative of hackathons, salons, and dinners presented in collaboration with the Solana Foundation. Learn more at https://dfutures.xyz.
All are welcome — no matter your background or skill set. Bring your curiosity, your ideas, and your willingness to co-create.
Apply to Attend
This event is a collaboration with Columbia University School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab, the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, and Columbia Engineering

Video Podcasting Essentials with Nick Michael, NPR
2025-11-14 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Video podcasts are everywhere, but making one that looks sharp, sounds great, and actually connects with an audience takes more than just hitting record. Join Nick Michael, Supervising Producer of Visuals for NPR to learn the building blocks for a professional approach. He’ll discuss principles for a full production workflow: setup/prep, gear recs, recording, editing full episodes, editing vertical clips for social and more. Pizza and drinks will be provided. Nick will be virtual but we will be gathering in person.
Register to Attend

Mito Habe-Evans/NPR
Nick Michael is a supervising editor for the Visuals team, where he leads the design and delivery of complex editorial projects. Those projects include NPR-in-a-Minute, which in the span of 18 months piloted over a dozen shortform video series and garnered 1 billion views across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. He also serves as editorial lead for NPR’s foray publishing podcasts to YouTube.
He has co-managed the growth of NPR’s award-winning video team, highlights of which include co-crafting the look of NPR’s signature interviews with President Obama, supervising two seasons of NPR Music’s The Formula and coordinating 22 filmmakers across the country to document 2017’s solar eclipse.
Michael joined NPR in 2014 as the lead video producer for Jazz Night in America, NPR’s first program with companion radio and video content. Jazz Night‘s 2017 portfolio earned a Peabody nomination.
Before NPR, Michael co-founded 1504, a video studio based in Birmingham, Ala. He earned an M.A. in photojournalism from the University of Missouri.

Learn how to Create News Content for Social Media - Discussion
2026-01-23 16:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
What should journalism look like in a social media-dominated world? Join us for a two day hands-on workshop, brought to you by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, in which you’ll build essential skills and create your own TikTok-style video!
Friday will kick off with pizza and a conversation with Joseph Ferguson, host and producer on the Washington Post Universe TikTok Team, and June Kim, graphics and multimedia editor at the New York Times and recent Columbia Journalism School alum. We’ll explore topics including thinking visually, speaking the language of modern audiences, and telling stories that would be impossible in another medium.
Saturday will be a hands-on workshop with Joseph, who will guide participants through the complete process of creating a vertical video—from concept to final edit. No experience required. Yes, you can learn this in a day, and you will leave with a video you made yourself!
Register here. Space is limited for Saturday’s workshop. It is not required to attend both days.
Questions? Contact Megan Kim mk4643@tc.columbia.edu or Eric Chen ec3729@columbia.edu

Learn how to Create News Content for Social Media - Workshop
2026-01-24 09:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States

2026 Venture Competition Information Session
2026-01-28 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Join us for snacks and coffee to learn about the 2026 Startup Columbia Venture Competition! At this information session, we’ll give an overview of the program, answer your questions, and give you a chance to meet other folks thinking about applying. We will also be joined by Sarah Ryley, winner of the most recent Venture Challenge and founder of The Source Report.
For the past five years, the Brown Institute has sponsored the “Media Track” of Startup Columbia, a campus-wide competition offering non-dilutive cash prizes to winning teams. The Media Track is designed for students, recent alumni, and faculty interested in starting a venture—for-profit or non-profit—involving journalism, media, and technology. Maybe you’ve been thinking about how AI can help reporters in small newsrooms, or you want to build tools for image verification, or make it easier for journalists to work with data. Maybe you’re imagining a single-subject news site, a platform, or a consultancy. We want to hear it.
The competition includes two rounds of pitch sessions where you’ll refine your idea with feedback from judges. Winners receive cash prizes, scholarships to the Brown Institute’s 2026 Summer Entrepreneurship Program, and a shot at a grant of up to $100,000.
Applications are due February 3. Apply at entrepreneurship.columbia.edu/startupcolumbia (select Media Track). Questions? Reach out to browninstitute@columbia.edu?

AI Club at CJS
2026-02-25 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Welcome to the Columbia Journalism School AI Club! We meet every other Monday in the Brown Institute (1st floor Pulitzer Hall).
This week, we’ll explore text embeddings (aka semantic maps). Imagine a government agency suddenly releases a large trove of pdf documents. There’s no way you can reasonably read millions of documents all at once so you’re left guessing at what might be in them. You search for keywords you think might surface documents with news value. But what if there was a way to leverage AI to show you all the documents at once, grouping similar ones together and allowing you to quickly get a sense of the whole corpus? Researchers at the Tow Center will show you a few examples of semantic maps in action (including of the Epstein files) and share some code that can help you make your own. As usual, there will be pizza.
Sign up to Join

Magic Grant Information Session (Columbia)
2026-03-02 12:30 - 13:30, 2026-03-12 12:30 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford are delighted to announce its 2026-2027 Magic Grant program. Applications are due April 1, 2026! To provide more information about our grants and the application process, the Brown Institute is hosting Magic Grant Information Sessions.
Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants to help you “follow your passion and experiment with new approaches to storytelling,” to paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown.
Our “Magic Grants” are a unique blend of technology and media. Grantees develop new ways to find and tell stories — producing platforms that extend our creativity, or creating powerful new works of journalism.

A Magic Grant can mean financial support for you and your team for up to a year (fellowships at Columbia, research positions at Stanford)
A Magic Grant can provide funding for your project — for production, prototyping, or purchasing services, software or equipment
A Magic Grant offers access to mentorship and our extensive alumni network

The Magic Grant program provides year-long funding awards of up to $150,000 ($300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities and their collaborators). In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group, and an extensive and inspiring alumni network.
If you’re interested in learning more about our Magic Grant offerings, come to our upcoming information session where you can find out:

The types of projects we’re interested in supporting
The various types of support we offer to grantees & fellows
Eligibility guidelines
How our staff can help you develop your proposal
How to apply

Register to Attend an Information Session
If you have any questions, write to us at browninstitute@columbia.edu.

Magic Grant Information Session (Stanford)
2026-03-05 16:00 - 17:30, 2026-03-19 16:00 - 17:30, 2026-03-30 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Brown Institute at Stanford (CoDa Building, E301), 389 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA, 94305, United States
The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford are delighted to announce its 2026-2027 Magic Grant program. Applications are due April 1, 2026! To provide more information about our grants and the application process, the Brown Institute is hosting Magic Grant Information Sessions.
Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants to help you “follow your passion and experiment with new approaches to storytelling,” to paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown.
Our “Magic Grants” are a unique blend of technology and media. Grantees develop new ways to find and tell stories — producing platforms that extend our creativity, or creating powerful new works of journalism.

A Magic Grant can mean financial support for you and your team for up to a year (fellowships at Columbia, research positions at Stanford)
A Magic Grant can provide funding for your project — for production, prototyping, or purchasing services, software or equipment
A Magic Grant offers access to mentorship and our extensive alumni network

The Magic Grant program provides year-long funding awards of up to $150,000 ($300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities and their collaborators). In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group, and an extensive and inspiring alumni network.
If you’re interested in learning more about our Magic Grant offerings, come to our upcoming information session where you can find out:

The types of projects we’re interested in supporting
The various types of support we offer to grantees & fellows
Eligibility guidelines
How our staff can help you develop your proposal
How to apply

If you have any questions, write to us at brown_institute@stanford.edu.

AI Club
2026-03-09 12:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Join us for AI Club, happening every other Monday at Columbia Journalism School.

This week, we are joined by Rachel Jupp, the Editorial Executive on the Gen AI team at the BBC! Rachel will demonstrate a case study of an AI-powered news product that the BBC deployed. She will speak about how the BBC developed their editorial policy and guidelines for AI and how they use them to decide when they will use AI in production and when they will not. Rachel will also offer a look at what may come next for AI at the BBC, touching on emerging ideas, experiments, and challenges they are facing.

—
Rachel Jupp has worked in a variety of editorial roles in the BBC, including as Editor of the investigative programme, Panorama. She is the Editorial Executive on the Gen AI team and works on all editorial issues related to the use of tools. Prior to the BBC, she worked at Channel 4 News in London and NPR in New York. She has an MPA from Columbia, where she concentrated on Journalism, at the J School. She is currently based in Washington DC, where she has represented the BBC in discussions about AI regulation. She will return to London in June 2026, to take up a new role as Director of Long Form, in BBC News.

Magic Grant Information Session (Columbia)
2026-03-30 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual (Information Session)
The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford are delighted to announce its 2026-2027 Magic Grant program. Applications are due April 1, 2026! To provide more information about our grants and the application process, the Brown Institute is hosting Magic Grant Information Sessions.
Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants to help you “follow your passion and experiment with new approaches to storytelling,” to paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown.
Our “Magic Grants” are a unique blend of technology and media. Grantees develop new ways to find and tell stories — producing platforms that extend our creativity, or creating powerful new works of journalism.

A Magic Grant can mean financial support for you and your team for up to a year (fellowships at Columbia, research positions at Stanford)
A Magic Grant can provide funding for your project — for production, prototyping, or purchasing services, software or equipment
A Magic Grant offers access to mentorship and our extensive alumni network

The Magic Grant program provides year-long funding awards of up to $150,000 ($300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities and their collaborators). In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group, and an extensive and inspiring alumni network.
If you’re interested in learning more about our Magic Grant offerings, come to our upcoming information session where you can find out:

The types of projects we’re interested in supporting
The various types of support we offer to grantees & fellows
Eligibility guidelines
How our staff can help you develop your proposal
How to apply

Register to Attend an Information Session
Zoom for Information Session
If you have any questions, write to us at browninstitute@columbia.edu.

AI Club
2026-04-02 12:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
This week, we’re using AI to help us scrape data from the web! Instead of our usual instructor-led format, we’ll start by exploring how the web actually works — looking at the sites we visit and how traffic moves between our browsers and servers. From there, we’ll review traditional web scraping workflows before diving into new strategies for using LLMs to tackle these same tasks. For the main part of the session, we’ll break into teams to perform a web scrape, then use an LLM to turn that data into a simple visualization.
Register and learn more at jschoolai.club.

Media Party NYC
2026-05-08 - 2026-05-10 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
From May 8 to 10, 2026, Columbia University’s Brown Institute hosts Media Party NYC, bringing together 300 journalists, technologists, researchers, and entrepreneurs from around the world to take on the forces reshaping news: AI-driven workflows, shifting audience behavior, and the creators and platforms now mediating how people find information.
We’re in a post-search era. A generation now encounters journalism through individual creators and vertical video, and traditional consumers are increasingly getting their information straight from AI platforms. Not homepages, not search, not television broadcasts. Newsrooms worldwide are adopting generative AI tools, but unevenly, at different scales, applied to different problems, with results that range from genuine editorial advancement to cautionary failures. These shifts look different from Buenos Aires to Nairobi to New York, and understanding that variation is essential to any serious response.
At a critical moment for the industry, Media Party focuses squarely on this transition: exploring how newsrooms and content creators must adapt when AI reshapes the information landscape.
Register to Attend
The Program
Media Party is not a traditional conference. It combines keynotes, workshops, a media fair, and a hackathon. It is a workspace designed to create the conditions for innovation to actually happen. Innovators from media organizations, small and large, technology providers ranging from startups to big platforms, and the scientific and open source communities will convene across four themes:

News Influencers & Vertical Video
Individual journalists are increasingly becoming the primary distribution channel for news, building audiences on platforms optimized for personality over institution. What does this shift mean for editorial standards, ethical boundaries, and sustainable business models, and how creator dynamics differ across media markets worldwide?
Local News & Civic Technology
AI tools promise new capabilities for under-resourced newsrooms: automated translation, audience engagement, data analysis at scale. But implementation demands more than technology. How do we ensure that things as crucial as understanding community trust, local information ecosystems, and the specific vulnerabilities of civic journalism are valued by the platforms and systems we adopt?
Internal Tools & AI Workflows
Newsrooms are building and adopting AI systems with limited cross-industry collaboration and inconsistent evaluation. This track creates space for practitioners to compare approaches, surface what hasn’t worked, and develop frameworks for assessing AI tools in real production environments.
Audiences & Algorithmic Distribution
As AI-driven systems increasingly mediate discovery, news organizations must understand not only what they publish but how it travels and to whom. What strategies can we deploy to reach and retain audiences across fragmented platforms and diverse global markets?

Who Should Attend
This convening is for communications leaders navigating AI integration, developers building tools for journalism, researchers studying human-AI collaboration, entrepreneurs developing sustainable news models, and any professional interested in the civic technology ecosystem and the future of news.
“The most significant transformation that Media Party brings to its participants is the ability to forge lasting connections with unique players in the industry: media outlets, technologists, and global entrepreneurs. The sustainability and credibility of the media ecosystem must be accompanied by a network of shared relationships designed for the long term”, Mariano Blejman, Media Party director.
