The Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures is a catalyst for reimagining journalism in an AI-transformed information landscape.

Since its founding in 2010 at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, the Tow-Knight Center has served as a center for research and innovation and a convening platform for media leaders and innovators. In 2025, the center shifted its focus to artificial intelligence and how it is transforming news.

Our work centers on meeting the AI moment: understanding how journalists and news consumers can navigate an AI-intermediated information landscape to preserve journalism’s democratic mission.

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Our Focus

AI isn’t just changing how news gets made — it’s changing how people find and use information. As AI increasingly intermediates the flow of information, the decisions built into those systems matter enormously. The Tow-Knight Center is investigating how journalists can help shape those decisions and what structures are needed to ensure accurate, nuanced reporting reaches the communities that need it.

We’re also exploring what AI can and cannot do for the news industry. Journalism will be reshaped by this technology, as it has been by every major technological shift. As an industry, we don’t have the luxury of pessimism about this change. Instead, we’re examining both risks and opportunities: How can AI’s capabilities inform new products and workflows that better serve communities? What pitfalls must we navigate? How can newsrooms build better tools and find new models of engagement?

This work is practical, not just theoretical. We engage with newsroom leaders, technologists, policymakers and news consumers to understand how AI is reshaping the entire information ecosystem. We build experimental prototypes to test ideas — like tools that help audiences compare how different outlets cover the same story — and share our findings openly. Our research informs the broad range of stakeholders working to ensure quality journalism reaches people in the ways they’re actually consuming information, from traditional newsrooms adapting their strategies to technologists building the systems that increasingly mediate our access to news.

The center’s programming takes shape through working summits and off-the-record salons, workshops and trainings on AI for working journalists and Newmark students, and partnerships with newsrooms on innovation projects, including AI Innovation Internships launching Fall 2026.

Under the leadership of Executive Director Gina Chua, the center brings together forward-thinking experimentation and research with real-world newsroom experience. Chua, who also serves as executive editor-at-large at Semafor, has spent nearly four decades in journalism, leading newsrooms at Reuters, the South China Morning Post and The Wall Street Journal, and pioneering AI implementation in news organizations.

Our History and Impact

The Tow-Knight Center has evolved through distinct phases, each responding to critical challenges facing journalism:

Entrepreneurship (2010-2015). The center launched the nation’s first Master’s degree and certificate in Entrepreneurial Journalism, equipping students and professionals to create ventures and reimagine the delivery of news at a time when legacy business models were collapsing.

Sustainability and Engagement (2015-2024). As the industry matured, the center deepened its focus on business models for journalism, incubating new ventures, advancing industry research, and establishing programs including the Engagement Journalism M.A. and the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership.

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of News (2025-present). The center has entered its most transformative phase — leading research, teaching and thought leadership on how generative AI is reshaping reporting, content creation, distribution, consumption and business strategy. As AI fundamentally alters the information landscape, the center is positioned to guide journalism through this profound transition.

The Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures was established with support from The Tow Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.