Poynter’s West Coast AI workshop focuses on newsroom leadership

Poynter Institute held the first West Coast workshop for its Leading AI in the Newsroom programme in Los Angeles on Oct. 26-27, bringing 33 journalists together to address a problem beyond selecting tools: how to lead artificial-intelligence adoption inside newsrooms where colleagues may be sceptical.

The two-day session at the ASU California Center covered responsible use, change-management strategies and ways to bring colleagues into decisions about AI. Participants came from newsrooms across the United States and took a pragmatic view of the technology’s potential as well as its failures.

As we reported Oct. 16, the inaugural cohort was created for people who have become their organisations’ internal contacts for AI questions at small and medium-sized newsrooms. The programme combines leadership training with practical AI instruction, with discussion of editorial integrity, job security and ethical implementation.

Newsrooms represented in the workshop were already using AI for story summaries and headline assistance. Some had developed tools to monitor government meetings, scrape documents for investigative reporters or flag possible errors before publication.

But the workshop identified organisational change and stakeholder expectations as central obstacles. Some participants faced directives from senior managers alongside strong resistance from staff, while AI leaders can be isolated inside their organisations.

Poynter’s advice was to establish benchmarks rather than impose technology. Participants were taught to identify measures that would decide whether an AI product should be launched or discontinued, and were encouraged to reserve time for strategy instead of devoting it entirely to editing, coding and meetings.

The workshop found that meaningful change required AI leadership roles to have institutional recognition, budgets and a place in strategy meetings. Alex Mahadevan said, “Without institutional support, these rising leaders will burn out.”

The programme uses Poynter’s AI Ethics Guidebook to assess risks and opportunities and to develop benchmarks for initiatives. Each participant is expected to produce an implementation plan tailored to their newsroom, through case studies, collaborative work and peer discussion. The course is tuition-free, supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the American Press Institute.

The emphasis on workflow and capacity reflects a wider local-news experience. The American Journalism Project found that, among 28 participating newsrooms, the most common AI uses were campaign and fundraising copy, audience and data analysis, and transcription and summarisation. It identified capacity, workflow fit and context as requirements for successful integration, and found the clearest benefit was reducing repetitive work so small teams had more time for human-led work.

Poynter published its first newsroom AI guidelines in March 2024 and refined them after its AI Summit that June. By June 2025, it said many news organisations had moved from avoiding AI to running small experiments or considering how to incorporate it into their workflows.

The cohort’s four virtual sessions are scheduled for Thursdays in November and early December and will address evaluation of AI tools, practical workflows, audience expectations, disclosure, leadership and project management. Participants’ projects include both AI tools and policy updates.