Mentorship Programme for Newsrooms: Supporting AI Adoption

The Thomson Reuters Foundation is offering a mentorship programme to guide selected newsrooms in their journey to better understand, experiment and integrate technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to support key editorial and operational functions and be better equipped to counteract disinformation.

This innovative six-month mentorship programme will support newsrooms in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania to understand, experiment and adopt AI driven solutions ethically and enhance their editorial and operational efficiency. The programme offers:

• Tailored strategies for each newsroom’s needs
• Practical experience with AI tools
• Guidance from AI and journalism experts

Eligibility Criteria

For this mentorship programme, they are looking for:

• Newsrooms that focus some or all of their content on producing original public interest journalism. This means their journalism should aim to inform the public about matters of relevance to their lives, well-being, and their rights and responsibilities as citizens
• Newsrooms that strive to produce balanced, fair and accurate journalism, which explores all sides of an issue and presents those findings accurately.
• Newsrooms that are small to medium size (10 to 50 staff members).
• Newsrooms with a substantial digital presence.
• Newsrooms must have access to technical support (could be IT manager, developer, website manager, etc.).
• Newsrooms with the capacity and willingness to commit at least two staff members to participate in the programme for six months and attend an in-person training/online training.
• No history of illicit or illegal activities by the entity, owner, senior management and key staff.
• Newsrooms that aren’t affiliated/associated to any government entity or political grouping.
• Newsrooms with editorial independence and freedom to make decisions without interference from non-editorial actors including owners.

Who they support

• TRF’s definition of a ‘newsroom’ is team of journalists whose primary function is to produce journalistic content. They could be legally incorporated or informal, start-up or long established covering a wide range of topics or a single topic. They must be led by an editor and adhere to a set of editorial standards recognised in the professional media industry. They also must carry legal responsibility for their published and/or broadcast content.
• The newsrooms can apply to take part of in TRF activities via open calls, be referred by TRF partners or donors, or be chosen to participate by TRF staff based on a set of clear criteria and specific objectives. However, there are a few minimum criteria for a newsroom to qualify for a TRF Newsroom Advisory.

How to apply

The deadline for applications is November 18, 2024. To learn more and apply, please click here.