AI Spotlight Series: AI Reporting Intensive

Join us for three, two-hour interactive workshops for journalists as part of the Pulitzer Center's AI Spotlight Series. These workshops will take place from June 10-12, 2024 at 10:00am CST (UTC-5), and are geared towards journalists in North America, South America, Africa, and Europe time zones. What time is that in my city?

Please note that these trainings will be conducted live in order to allow for interaction between attendees and coaches. A recording will not be shared with registrants afterwards (but registrants will receive resources!). If you are interested in attending the training, please show up online at the time specified. If this time does not work for you, please see our full list of upcoming trainings here. 

Apply to join the course here.

This course is designed for reporters who have a grasp of AI, spend a significant amount of their time covering technology, and want to go deeper. It will be an opportunity to clarify your understanding of technical concepts and think more expansively about how to cover the different facets of this fast-moving story. The course will require a dedicated time commitment: We will meet for a total of 6 hours in one week; there will be an additional hour of recommended homework between each session to get the most out of class time.

This is a virtual interactive workshop that requires a total of up to 8 hours of time commitment (class time 6 hours + 30-90 minutes of homework). 

During the first session, we will cover the history of AI, the AI supply chain, and key technical concepts such as how to train a deep-learning model and the difference between supervised and unsupervised learning. We will also dive into basic data literacy skills, such as for investigating AI bias. On the second day, we will dig into what makes a good accountability story and how to report on governments and communities, including by documenting harms and embedding with affected populations. On the third day, we will dive deeper into more technical concepts related to generative AI (think: transformers, diffusion models, scaling laws), and how to report on companies, including by cultivating inside sources.

Finally, we will conclude with a pitch workshop for anyone interested in getting real-time feedback on an AI accountability reporting project.

Meet our coaches and learn more about the course structure below!

• Karen Hao is an award-winning journalist covering the impacts of artificial intelligence on society and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She was formerly a foreign correspondent covering China’s technology industry for The Wall Street Journal and a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review. Her work is regularly taught in universities and cited by governments. She has received numerous accolades for her coverage, including an ASME Next Award for Journalists Under 30. In 2019, her weekly newsletter, The Algorithm, was nominated for The Webby Awards. In 2020, she won a Front Page Award for co-producing the podcast In Machines We Trust.
• Gabriel Sean Geiger is an Amsterdam-based investigative journalist specializing in surveillance and algorithmic accountability reporting. His work often grapples with issues of inequality from a global lens. He is currently a retainer at Lighthouse Reports and was previously a weekly contributor for VICE’s Motherboard. His reporting can be found in VICE, The Guardian, openDemocracy, and the New Internationalist.
• Lam Thuy Vo is a journalist who marries data analysis with on-the-ground reporting to examine how systems and policies affect individuals. She is a reporter with The Markup and an associate professor of data journalism at the City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Previously, she was a journalist at BuzzFeed News, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera America, and NPR's Planet Money. 

Learn more about the AI Spotlight Series and explore other available courses. 

Schedule Overview

• Day 1 (June 10): Foundations (2 hours)
• Day 2 (June 11): Reporting on Governments and Communities (2 hours)
• Day 3 (June 12): Reporting on Companies (2 hours)

View the full syllabus here.