OpenAI, Microsoft fund AI fellows in 5 newsrooms to chase sustainability, not just headlines

The Lenfest Institute is cutting checks and handing out compute credits to five local newsrooms, betting that a two-year deep dive into generative AI can help shore up the business side of journalism. Chicago Public Media, The Minnesota Star Tribune, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times will each hire an AI fellow, backed by OpenAI and Microsoft, in what’s being called the AI Collaborative and Fellowship program. The aim isn’t to replace reporters with bots—Tom Rubin, OpenAI’s IP chief, made a point of saying nothing replaces the central role of reporters—but to figure out if AI can actually move the needle on revenue and operational efficiency for outlets that have been bleeding out for years.

Each newsroom has a different experimental lane. The Philadelphia Inquirer wants to build a conversational search interface for its archives and use AI to monitor municipal media. Newsday is looking at public data summarization tools that could double as a marketing services product. The Minnesota Star Tribune is playing with summarization and content discovery for both journalists and readers. Chicago Public Media is targeting translation and transcription to reach new audiences. The Seattle Times, perhaps most pragmatically, is pointing AI at advertising sales and go-to-market training before expanding to other departments. Three more organizations will join in a second round.

Microsoft’s Teresa Hutson framed the investment as an effort to make these newsrooms “lighthouses for the industry”—a phrase that sounds good but also sets a high bar. The program requires participants to share their product developments, case studies, and technical information openly, which means these five shops are essentially doing R&D for the entire local news sector. Jim Friedlich, Lenfest’s CEO, emphasized that the fellowship is designed to promote AI use that “upholds the highest ethical standards,” a nod to the very real tension between AI hype and journalistic integrity.

I’m watching two things here. First, whether two years is actually enough time to show meaningful business results, especially with technology that’s evolving faster than most newsroom budgets can track. Second, the optics. OpenAI and Microsoft are funding the very organizations that have been wary of their platforms scraping content. Rubin called local news “particularly vulnerable”—accurate, but also a convenient framing when you’re trying to build goodwill in an industry that’s been skeptical of your data practices.