AI is changing how newsrooms work, but understanding how these systems work is essential before deciding how to use them.
Join Understanding and Building AI Systems for Journalism, a five-week online course organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Instructor Aimee Rinehart, Founder of Frontier Collective, will guide journalists and news leaders through practical strategies for integrating AI into their organizations, from auditing data and building AI literacy to verifying AI-assisted work and developing sustainable strategies.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
The course combines practical strategies with real-world examples to help you evaluate AI tools, build effective teams, and make informed decisions about AI in journalism.
This course is designed for journalists, news leaders, educators, researchers, and others navigating how AI fits into their organizations. No technical background is required.
Enroll now and build the knowledge and strategies you need to approach AI thoughtfully and effectively in your organization.
The course is organized into five weekly modules, combining practical strategies, examples, and activities:
Introduction Module. Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Headed: Explore how journalism’s approach to AI has evolved since ChatGPT launched in 2022, and why the conversation is shifting from which AI tools to use to whether your organization’s data is ready.
Module 1. AI as infrastructure, not a tool: Learn the difference between simply using AI tools and building AI infrastructure. Audit your newsroom’s information architecture and identify what good data looks like for journalism.
Module 2. AI literacy across beats: Understand what large language models can and cannot do, including hallucinations, knowledge cutoffs, and bias. Learn how to identify AI use cases for your beat and build practical AI literacy.
Module 3. Verification, accountability, and responsibility: Learn how to build verification into AI-assisted journalism workflows. Explore accuracy, accountability, and the legal and ethical considerations of using AI in journalism.
Module 4. MCPs and knowledge-sharing infrastructure: Understand what Model Context Protocol (MCP) is and how it can connect your newsroom’s archives, research, and institutional knowledge to the AI tools your team uses.
Module 5. Building a newsroom AI culture and strategy: Develop strategies for AI literacy, experimentation, and governance. Learn how to create a practical roadmap for the next 90 days, 6 months, and 12 months and turn your learnings into a strategy for your newsroom.
Enroll now and start building a practical AI strategy for your newsroom.
Questions? Contact us at journalismcourses@austin.utexas.edu.
Aimee Rinheart is focused on shaping the future of journalism through strategic, collaborative innovation. She was most recently a Senior Product Manager for AI Strategy at the Associated Press, where she led cross-functional initiatives that integrated generative AI into news and operational workflows with journalistic integrity. She co-founded Humans in the Loop, a networking group for news innovators that meets regularly. She spearheaded collaborative initiatives on verification of online content in Brazil, France, the U.K., and the U.S. Aimee serves on the board for the Page Center at Penn State. Her work foregrounds agency, accountability, and human-centered design in news and technology.
