An autopsy for AI: lessons for journalism from the platform era

For nearly two decades, journalism’s future was shaped as much inside technology companies as in newsrooms as platforms promised distribution, scale, and sustainability in exchange for content and referral traffic. Some of those bets worked. Many didn’t. Newsrooms restructured themselves around metrics, algorithms, and monetization models they didn’t control and are still living with the consequences. Now AI is influencing how news is produced, distributed, and discovered in news ways even as it raises many similar questions about how to adapt.
This panel brings together senior tech executives who worked directly at the intersection of platforms and journalism to offer a, unusually frank reckoning with what went wrong, what genuinely worked, and why those choices matter for the public. The discussion looks ahead, asking what lessons from the social media age should guide journalism now? What opportunities were missed that we can take advantage of today? What are the risks and benefits to new publisher partnerships and deals with tech firms? Which experiments genuinely improved access to information, safety, or sustainability, and which quietly hollowed them out? What warning signs should we watch for? And how can this next wave of technology support rather than undermine a healthy, trustworthy news ecosystem?
We need a clearer understanding of how incentives - not intentions – have shaped journalism. This conversation offers a rare, candid chance to learn directly from those who helped build the last generation of information infrastructure before the next one fully locks in. The goal is not nostalgia or blame, but clarity: what went wrong, what went right, and what journalists, editors, publishers, and policymakers should insist on this time around.
Moderated by Courtney Radsch.
Organised in association with Center for Journalism and Liberty, Open Markets Institute.