In April 2024 the Local News Initiative, in conjunction with the Knight Lab at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Communications and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung USA, published a report titled, “Impact of AI on Local News Models: AI Is Disrupting the Local News Industry. Will It Unlock Growth or Be an Existential Threat?”
Based on discussions with more than 25 local news and AI experts worldwide, the report explored the potential benefits and perils presented by this revolutionary technology. University of Maryland Journalism Professor Tom Rosenstiel, a participant in the Washington, D.C., workshop that yielded much of the report’s content, urged journalists to take a proactive approach to generative artificial intelligence and to avoid the industry’s mistakes from a generation earlier as it was crushed by the emergence of the internet.
