Hacks/Hackers partners with Poynter to deliver AI ethics and literacy

Hacks/Hackers and Poynter partner to keep fast AI adoption aligned with journalism ethics

In an initiative to move AI ethics out of white papers and into daily newsroom decisions, the Poynter Institute and its digital media literacy initiative MediaWise will join Hacks/Hackers as our ethics, governance and literacy partner for AI and journalism events throughout the year.

“We’ve learned from our summits that a single event isn’t enough, because the technology changes almost weekly. This partnership lets us turn a two-day conversation into a yearlong one, meeting journalists where they are as new tools and challenges emerge," says Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise and Poynter faculty member overseeing its AI Innovation Lab.

Last call for registrations: Building future AI news experiences with The Atlantic and Infactory (East Palo Alto, January 31, 2026)

Join Hacks/Hackers, The Atlantic’s product and tech team and Infactory in East Palo Alto on January 31 for for a hands-on day of innovation exploring how AI can responsibly transform the way people experience news.

Using The Atlantic’s archives and Infactory’s AI technology, you can hack on new approaches to curation, personalization and audience engagement using AI. Attendance is limited and there is a $5,000 prize for the top project.

Sign up for the AI x Journalism Summit (May 13–14)

The Hacks/Hackers AI x Journalism Summit returns to Baltimore on May 13-14, 2026. Registration is now open and we hope you'll send us your pitches (use this submission form and see below for more details) for focused sessions and other programming at the summit led by experts who can go deep.

AI papers explained

AI Papers Explained is our experiment in using AI to help translate the latest AI research from arXiv into plain language for journalists and technologists. NOTE: The summaries are AI-generated and lightly edited, and so may contain errors or omissions.

• New research documents the complex effects of blocking AI crawlers, with the clearest evidence showing large publishers experienced significant traffic declines: Major Publishers Lost 23% of Traffic After Blocking AI Bots, Though Smaller Sites May Face Different Tradeoffs

AI x journalism news

• AI reshapes journalism faster than public perception (DigWatch)
• Wikimedia Foundation announces new AI partnerships with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity, and others (TechCrunch)
• Introducing OpenAI Academy for News Organizations (OpenAI)

Upcoming events

• Jan. 31, East Palo Alto, Building future AI news experiences with The Atlantic and Infactory
• Feb. 10–13, Miami, Knight Media Forum 2026
• Feb. 26–27, Orlando, Association of Community Publishers Conference & Trade Show 2026
• March 5–8, Indianapolis, NICAR26
• March 5–6, 2026, Online, IIJ Freelance Conference 2026
• March 9–13, Toronto, Media Subscriptions Summit
• March 12, Washington D.C., RTDNA World Tour
• March 30, Chicago, ONA26: Chicago
• May 12–14, Baltimore, Hacks/Hackers AI x Journalism Summit 2026

Journalism jobs

• Assistant Professor Journalism - Digital & Interactive Storytelling, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (US)
• Audience Editor, Capital & Main (US)
• Digital producer, Boston Biz Journal (US)
• Director of Individual Giving, Lenfest Institute for Journalism (US)
• Executive Director, Borderless Magazine NFP (US)
• Executive Director, Miller National Academy for Free Expression & Pluralism, University of Denver (US)
• Senior editor for the business desk, Wired (US)
• Senior video journalist, WSJ (US)
• Curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University (Anywhere)
• Deputy Director of Investigations, The Sentry (Anywhere)
• Professor/Knight Chair in Journalism and Technology, University of Florida (Anywhere)
• Program Assistant, IREX (Anywhere)
• Project Officer, DW Akademie (Anywhere)
• Reporter, The Examination (Anywhere)