AI x Journalism Summit takeaways: The room wasn't sad. It was ready

Computers finally work the way I dreamed they would. But they’re keeping me up at night.

Hacks/Hackers Co-founder and Principal Burt Herman opened the AI x Journalism Summit with a confession: He’s become one of those people walking around with a laptop half-open so AI agents can keep working. The excitement over what AI can do is real, and so is the anxiety over what it could break. He’s losing sleep over both the possibility and the stakes.

The Room Wasn’t Sad. It Was Ready.

In his closing remarks at the AI x Journalism Summit, Hacks/Hackers Strategic Adviser Paul Cheung argued journalism has spent too long in a grief cycle. The conversations in Baltimore weren’t about fear of AI but about trust, capacity and what newsrooms can build with the technology. He told the room to stop waiting for perfect conditions and start building.

Every organization has a process, yours just isn’t written down

Paige Moody and Jake Kara, who lead the Hacks/Hackers Newsroom AI Lab, share one of the takeaways from working with cohort 2 (Trusting News, Prison Journalism Project and Bellingcat). The valuable organizational processes are usually undocumented, and defining the real constraint matters more than picking the obvious AI tool. They brought the same thesis to their “What’s Your Problem” session at the summit.

Worth a read

• We let four AIs run radio stations. Here’s what happened. (Andon Labs): Four AI models run radio stations 24/7 for five months and emerge with strikingly different identities, including a protest broadcaster and a ritual-chanting station.
• How to set up an AI-native organization (aweb.ai): A practical guide to running an org through AI agents with named responsibilities, persistent context and durable handoffs.
• Local AI Needs to be the Norm (unix.foo): The case for local models as the default, not the exception.
• Who decides what AI tells you? Campbell Brown, once Meta’s news chief, has thoughts (TechCrunch): Brown sees the Facebook-news playbook repeating with AI and isn’t waiting for someone else to act.
• Mediahuis joins ‘NATO for news’ AI licensing group SPUR (Press Gazette): The European publisher coalition seeking shared AI licensing standards adds another major name.

Upcoming events

• May 28–30, Mechelen, Belgium — Dataharvest 2026
• June 1–3, Marseille, France — WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress
• June 19–21, Tbilisi, Georgia — ZEG Storytelling Festival
• June 23, Bonn, Germany — DW Global Media Forum
• August 25–26, Los Angeles, USA — Hacks/Hackers Visual AI x Journalism Forum with ASU (save the date)
• September 25, NYC, USA — Hacks/Hackers AI x Investigative Journalism event with The New York Times (save the date)

Jobs

• Senior Software Engineer, AI Platforms and Products, The New York Times (New York, NY)
• Open Source Intelligence Reporter, The New York Times (Various, Europe)
• Senior Manager, Society, Safety & Responsibility Communications, Google DeepMind (London, UK)
• Communications Manager, Research, Anthropic (New York, NY / San Francisco, CA / Seattle, WA)
• Engineering Editorial Lead, Anthropic (San Francisco, CA / New York, NY)
• Executive Director, MinnPost (US)
• Executive Director, Investigative Reporters & Editors (Anywhere)
• Deputy Director, Index Investigation (Paris, France)