Newsletter

Wisconsin Watch and Connecticut Mirror join Hacks/Hackers Newsroom AI Lab as first partners

Plus benchmarking AI tools for newsrooms, pitching our panel for SXSW, jobs and events

The Hacks/Hackers Newsroom AI Lab is launching its work with two statewide newsrooms as our first partners: Wisconsin Watch and The Connecticut Mirror.

The lab helps small- and mid-sized news organizations build capacity to scope, evaluate and manage technical projects involving AI. Our structured curriculum guides newsroom partners through complete product development cycles: identifying real needs, defining success metrics and using decision-making frameworks to explore whether AI provides sustainable solutions.

CT Mirror and Wisconsin Watch logos — The Newsroom AI Lab program helps small and mid-sized news organizations build capacity to scope, evaluate and manage technical projects involving AI.

Both partners from Connecticut and Wisconsin approached the Lab with thoughtful, needs-driven ideas about how technology could amplify their journalism. They share curiosity about responsible AI experimentation, viewing it as a long-term strategy rather than a short-term fix.

Join us for 'Benchmarking AI Tools for Newsrooms: Measuring LLMs the Journalist Way' (Online, Monday, August 25)

As summer winds down and you prepare for a busy fall, join us on Monday, August 25th for our next AI Real Talk event: Benchmarking AI Tools for Newsrooms: Measuring LLMs the Journalist Way.

AI Real Talk Series: Benchmarking AI Tools for Newsrooms: Measuring LLMs the Journalist Way | Monday, August 25

In this online panel, Charlotte Li, Jeremy Gilbert, and Nicholas Diakopoulos from Northwestern University’s Generative AI in the Newsroom (GAIN) initiative will share insights from their May 2025 workshop with newsroom practitioners on how to build meaningful benchmarks grounded in real-world newsroom tasks.

This session is designed for newsroom leaders, data journalists, audience and product teams, innovation units and anyone assessing or implementing AI tools in journalism who wants to ensure alignment with core editorial principles.

RSVP here

Community voting is open between August 5-24, 2025

Vote for our panel at SXSW 2026!

Hacks/Hackers is pitching a panel for SXSW and we need your vote!

Featuring Diana Lu, Claire Wardell, Paul Cheung and Burt Herman, our proposed panel, Turning the Info War into an Infrastructure Battle, will examine how journalism’s defensive posture — fact-checking, debunking, countering one falsehood at a time — is no match for the industrial scale of today’s disinformation. The real battle is over infrastructure: the money, tech and audience pipelines that power bad actors.

Our proposed session offers a strategic reset. We’ll explore how journalism can go on offense by cutting off revenue, disrupting technical systems, rerouting audiences and mobilizing communities to actively defend credible information. It’s time to stop reacting and start rewriting the rules.

Community voting for SXSW is open until Monday, August 25. We hope you'll support us!

Vote for our panel