Already Dead
/Some people have already died. They just haven’t bothered to set the funeral date. -John Maxwell
Default Mode
/Our brains never get into what scientists call “default mode.” That default mode allows your mind to wander, which is good for solving problems, exploring creativity and ultimately finding meaning. The reason people would rather pick up their phone than enter default mode is that it can be uncomfortable in the moment. -Arthur Brooks quoted in the Washington Post
18 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media
/Mon, July 27 - How to Spread Solutions Journalism on Social Media, Part 1
What: Creating compelling social-first content that expands the reach and impact of your solutions reporting.
Who: Rahim Jessani, a creator journalist and founder of Bottom Up Media, an independent journalism organization that produces, incubates, and consults on creator journalism for the next generation of audiences.
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Solutions Journalism
Tue, July 28 - The Rise of South Africa's Indie Info Providers
What: Recent surveys suggest that about one in four South Africans now get news from individuals rather than organisations. In the face of shrinking newsrooms, how are independent content and information providers reshaping the face of South African media? Join us for a look at a new report from the Center for News, Technology & Innovation (CNTI), all about South Africa's independent information providers.
Who: Pheladi Sethusa; Wits Centre for Journalism; Jay Barchas-Lichtenstein & Emily Wright from CNTI; Chris Roper from Code for Africa.
When: 8 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Wits Centre for Journalism
Tue, July 28 - How collaboratives can provide journalists safety
What: An overview of the current status quo and shows how news collaboratives join forces to draw and execute a solid safety plan that addresses their particular needs.
Who: Liza Gross is a journalist and media leader with over three decades of experience working in executive positions at news organizations and non profits.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: eventbrite
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Collaborative Journalism Resource Hub, which is housed at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University
Tue, July 28 - Creating high-quality presentations
What: We will walk through how to shape the narrative, ground the work in relevant context, define slide constraints, create a deck plan, draft speaker notes, and ask for a review trail before sharing. You will also learn where human review matters most, including source accuracy, layout, tone, assumptions, and approvals. You will leave with a reusable presentation workflow that includes a deck plan, source list, speaker note pattern, and review checklist.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: OpenAI Academy
Tue, July 28 - Introduction to AI Strategy Development (Strategic Planning + Technology Assistance)
What: Understanding how your team interacts with AI and tech is extremely important. To do strategic planning correctly, we must now include how AI will assist us in completing our work. There are too few resources and too high a need to get this wrong.
Who: Tina Crouse who works in AI Ethics and Strategy. She is a Responsible AI practitioner and has been delivering webinars and in-person presentations on AI since 2022. She is the author of several articles about AI and Nonprofits
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: TechSoup
Wed, July 29 - Codex bootcamp 101: Agentic coding
What: Learn how to use Codex for practical agentic coding workflows. We’ll cover how to scope tasks, provide effective context, steer work as it progresses, and review changes before they’re applied.
Who: Allie Lei AI Deployment Manager, OpenAI; Sean Lubbers Technical Success, OpenAI; Javin Pombra AI Deployment Manager, OpenAI; Alexandra Nanu AI Deployment Manager, OpenAI.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: OpenAI Academy
Wed, July 29 - Historical Headlines: Unearthing Stories in Digital News Archives
What: Uncover the lasting value of digital historical newspapers for genealogy, local history, classroom projects, community research, and more. Learn how these rich primary sources can help patrons make meaningful discoveries.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Newsbank
Wed, July 29 - Responsible use and AI ethics in legal aid
What: This panel will focus on themes of responsible AI use and AI ethics in legal aid settings. The discussion will explore practical considerations for organizations adopting AI tools, including confidentiality, accuracy, human review, equity, client trust, and appropriate use.
Who: Gloria Lee, Chief Legal Officer, Everlaw; Bridget McCormack, President & CEO, American Arbitration Association; former Chief Justice, Michigan Supreme Court Angela Tripp, Program Officer for Technology, Legal Services Corporation Rich Leimsider, Director, AI for Nonprofits Sprint.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: OpenAI Academy
Wed, July 29 - AI-Powered Customer Intelligence with Adobe CX Analytics
What: In this webinar, you'll see how leading organizations are using Adobe CX Analytics to cut through complexity and build a clearer, more connected view of their customers.
Who: Max Cohen, Sr. Marketing Analyst, Major League Baseball; Josh Smiley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Adobe.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Association of National Advertisers
Wed, July 29 - Storytelling for Impact
What: Join us as we go through tips, techniques and tools to help the modern marketer tell better and more impactful stories to activate their audiences around ideas and actions.
Who: Kiersten Hill, Director of Nonprofit Solutions.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Firespring
Wed, July 29 - The Stories We Tell: The Politics of Stigma and the Language of Immigration Reporting
What: We’ll take a closer look at one aspect of that history and explore how a social justice initiative launched 21 years ago has shaped the language we use and the stories we tell about immigration today. We’ll excavate the recent history of the terms we use when talking about immigrants, explain how they’ve become politically weaponized, and discuss what’s at stake for the health and well-being of immigrant families and communities.
Who: Rinku Sen is a writer and social justice strategist, and the executive director of the Narrative Initiative.
When: 2:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsors: USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism & the Narrative Initiative.
Thu, July 30 - Reuters Digital News Report 2026
What: A presentation of key findings in this year’s research that reflect the biggest and latest trends in North America.
Who: Jim Egan, Senior Research Associate,
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Reuters
Thu, July 30 - Automating workflows
What: We will map the workflow from start to finish: what triggers the work, what context is needed, which tools or source materials matter, who owns each step, where approvals happen, and what a good output looks like. Then we will turn that map into a reusable workflow brief you can use to guide ChatGPT, Codex, a skill, or a workspace agent depending on what is available in your workspace. You will leave with a practical workflow brief and a checklist for deciding what should be automated, reviewed, or kept human-led.
Who: Juliann Igo GTM, OpenAI
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: OpenAI Academy
Thu, July 30 - Industry Attitudes and Usage of AI: Year 3 Survey Review
What: The ANA's Year 3 AI Member Survey is back with fresh data on how the industry is adopting, investing in, and integrating artificial intelligence. Join us as we break down the latest findings and explore how organizations at different stages of AI adoption have evolved over the past year. We'll dive into investment trends, organizational strategies, and governance approaches. If you want to know where your organization stands and what it takes to move forward, this is the conversation to join.
Who: Stacey Lynn Schulman, Founder & Chief Executive at Human Insight.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Association of National Advertisers
Thu, July 30 - Automating workflows
What: We will map the workflow from start to finish: what triggers the work, what context is needed, which tools or source materials matter, who owns each step, where approvals happen, and what a good output looks like. Then we will turn that map into a reusable workflow brief you can use to guide ChatGPT, Codex, a skill, or a workspace agent depending on what is available in your workspace.
Who: Juliann Igo GTM, OpenAI.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: OpenAI Academy
Thu, July 30 - From SEO to AEO and beyond: Building resilient newsrooms in the AI era
What: Diversifying traffic and deepening audience relationships are key to building resilience in the AI era. With AI answers on the rise and search traffic declining, news organizations can’t simply replace SEO with AEO. Instead, publishers need to strengthen their foundations by diversifying traffic and revenue sources while building deeper connections with their audiences. In this session, we will share strategies that every news publisher should be investing in now--whether you’re all in or all out on AI, or still exploring your approach.
Who: Laura E. Davis, Indiegraf's entrepreneur in residence.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Indiegraf
Thu, July 30 - Get started with ChatGPT Work
What: We’ll show you how Chat and Work complement each other. You’ll see Work tackle two projects from start to finish: building an offsite planning workbook from scattered materials and creating a leadership presentation from business data and team updates.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: OpenAI Academy
Fri, July 31 - Meet Fernanda Santos
What: IRE's Investigative Editors and Managers of Color Community is holding free ongoing webinars aimed at helping professionals connect.
Who: Fernanda Santos is an editorial director at The 19th.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: IRE
People & Places
/A sign that someone is growing is that they expose themselves to people and places that are better than they are, different than they are, and more successful than they are. -John Maxwell
Why Not?
/Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw, born July 26, 1856
Smart is
/Smart is not something that you just are, smart is something that you can get. -Jeff Howard
Some problems
/Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
24 Articles about AI & Writing
/The Most Famous AI Writing Tic Is Also the Most Mysterious – The Atlantic
AI Writing Strips Mystery and Complexity From Stories – Neuroscience News
‘Humanizer’ tool can erase signs of AI-written text — alarming scientists – Nature
Pastors Using AI to Help Write Sermons Grapple With Where to Draw the Line – Wall Street Journal
Pentagon boasts of using AI to write reports mandated by Congress – Ars Technica
Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era – New York Times
A Meta-Epistemological Reason for Rejecting AI-Written Philosophy – Daily Nous
What AI’s Style Tells Us About It – The Atlantic
AI can write SEO content, but it can’t replace real experience – Search Engine Land
Could a Machine Write This Column? – The Free Press
What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity - New York Times
How AI is changing language – The Guardian
The Biggest Tell That Something Was Written by AI - The Atlantic
When AI Does the Writing, Who's the Author? – Psychology Today
Best practices for GEO: Strategies for AI search visibility – MuckRack
How To Make Sure Human Writing Stands Out In The AI Era - Forbes
How AI citations have changed in the last 6 months: New insights from ‘What is AI Reading?’ - MuckRack
Can A.I. Produce Writing That We Actually Want to Read? – New Yorker
We Asked the Future of Truth Author to Explain How He Used AI. It Didn’t Go Well – Wired
AI fiction is the new fast food – Washington Post
AI Changes Its Feedback on Students’ Writing When It Knows Their Race, Gender – EdWeek
Someone Used A.I. to Write an Unauthorized Biography of Me. I Don’t Recommend Reading It.- New York Times
Writing with and without AI - The Berkshire Edge
Study finds nearly half of all LinkedIn long posts are AI-generated, and that's only the start – Tech Radar
Shrink it
/Shrink the change. Break it down so it's not so scary.
Show up
/Show up in your life everyday.
15 Articles about AI & the Creative Arts
/What AI Will Do to Art – The Atlantic
1,273 designers tell all: Their rates, real pay, and how they really feel about AI – Fast Company
Taste cannot be delegated The death of design by committee in the age of AI – UX Design
A.I. Chatbot Helps a $100 Thrift Store Painting Sell for Over $250,000 – New York Times
The Four Design Jobs AI Created (So Far) – NN Group
The 80/20 problem: Will AI ever create great art? – Technical.ly
How AI Will Make Art Worse – TIME
A look inside Dataland in Los Angeles, dedicated entirely to A.I.-generated art - New York Times
I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Secretly Training AI. – Substack
The state of generative AI in the creator economy – Digiday
Landmark New Report Warns That A Flawed AI Content Market is Accelerating ‘Content Cannibalization’ – Open Market Institute
Aesthetics of AI - AColorBright
Craft is Untouchable: AI doesn't threaten craft—the temptation to skip iteration does – A Color Bright
Take my job, AI! - Jeff Zych
AI Art Is Human Art An interview with a cognitive scientist about creativity and pleasure – Nautilus
18 Articles about the Business of Running an AI Company
/Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed – New York Times
These AI-Native Companies Have Tiny Staffs and Fewer Bosses - Wall Street Journal
The hottest AI models in Silicon Valley face a powerful source of competition – Washington Post
A.I. Is Running on Borrowed Money - New York Times
Alibaba’s A.I. Is a Hit, but Hard to Turn Into a Moneymaker – New York Times
New York bans data center construction for a year, rattling AI industry – Arstechnica
China’s Moonshot AI Releases Model to Challenge Top U.S. Systems - Wall Street Journal
New York becomes first state to impose one-year pause on new AI datacenters – The Guardian
Start-ups are paying white-collar professionals to teach their jobs to artificial intelligence models – New York Times
Apple Sues OpenAI, Accusing It of Stealing Company Secrets – New York Times
What AI companies want for the millions they’re spending on elections – CNBC
Distillation Challenges AI Giants, Threatens Profit Margins - Business Insider
American A.I. Companies complain that competitors in China are unfairly copying their A.I. systems using a technique that has been around for years. – New York Times
Databricks Releases General AI Agents for Businesses – Wall Street Journal
Silicon Valley backed Trump to kill AI regulation, now the industry is begging for rules – The Next Web
The semiconductor industry that has become a major choke point in the global contest for artificial intelligence leadership – New York Times
Chinese Supercomputer Overtakes U.S. as World’s Fastest – Wall Street Journal
The Constant is Change
/We cling to our identity, our relationships, and our ideologies as if they are fixed forever. We make ridged life plans and feel guilty when they break. We hold grudges against people who no longer exist, and we feel betrayed when someone else changes. But if everything is flex, then change isn’t a failure, it’s natural. Change and transformation are normal. You, me, and everyone will move on. We will all become someone new. So, stop trying to freeze the river. Stop demanding that things stay the same because everything and everyone will change. -Jonny Thomson
What is distinctively human about writing
/What is distinctively human about writing: Moments in the narrative that are unexpected, seem imperfect, incomplete or controversial. From those moments, stories truly unfold. The flaw, the uncomfortable, the anomaly are markers of originality, authenticity and sources of growth. -Andrea Larson, Duke University
AI Definitions: The Illusion of Competence
/The Illusion of Competence – This cognitive bias takes place when individuals mistakenly believe they have mastered a subject or skill when they have not. Studies have shown that AI users can develop this overconfidence when they outsource their thinking to generative AI, avoiding the deep mental engagement and friction required for learning and aptitude. Delegating the heavy lifting to AI is sometimes referred to as “cognitive offloading.”
21 Recent Articles about AI & Academic Scholarship
/AI reviewers make it easier to get research published. US study calls it paper-laundering – The Print
Doctored data sets could trick AI agents - Nature
Award-winning Korea studies scholar accused of using AI-fabricated citations – NK News
AI tools meant to vet science are surprisingly easy to fool – Science News
‘Humanizer’ tool can erase signs of AI-written text — alarming scientists – Nature
AI-assisted reviews will result in ordinary, uncontroversial research – The Times Higher Ed
AI Slop Is a Tenure Problem, Not Just a Tech Problem – Inside Higher Ed
In the AI era, the human struggle can no longer be the point of research - The Times Higher Ed
Artificial intelligence in scientific review and writing: What should we be doing? – Oxford Acamdemic
Research integrity in the age of AI (podcast) - The Lancet
University launches investigation into its faculty member's paper allegedly containing AI watermarks in graphics – Global Times
Scientists decry conference’s use of hidden prompts to snare AI peer reviews – The Transmitter
New AI Agents Pose ‘Existential Threat’ to How Grants Are Awarded – Inside Higher Ed
Publication fraud in the era of generative artificial intelligence – British Pharmacological Society
Anyone can fake a scientific image with AI, tricking even academic journals – and undermining trust in science – The Conversation
AI promised to democratise academic publishing – the evidence says otherwise – The London School of Economics
Journal investigating paper on cognitive impact of generative AI – Retraction Watch
Did AI write this article? Perish the thought. But we tracked how artificial intelligence is changing five creative fields – The Economist
Scientists want you to read their research papers—so they’re using gen AI to turn them into TikTok videos – Fast Company
A little spark of madness
/You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. -Robin Williams (born July 21, 1951)
22 Articles about Job Negotiation
/5 Questions Veterans Should Ask When Negotiating a Starting Salary - Military.com
7 Ways To Win At Salary Negotiation In A Tough Job Market -Forbes
8 Reasons you should turn down that job offer - Salary.com
Ask For Too Much And You Might Lose The Offer: New Rules Of Salary Negotiation - Forbes
Don’t Accept A Job Offer Without Doing These 3 Things - Forbes
Don’t Waste Your Money: How to negotiate your salary/raise - ABC 27
The era of salary negotiation is ending - The Hill
Gen Z is using ChatGPT to practice salary negotiations and tough conversations before they happen – Fortune
How AI can help you negotiate better deals on rent, salary and more - FOX-10 News
How Salary Negotiations Uncover A Company’s True Priorities - Forbes
How to negotiate your salary to help with inflation - Fast Company
How to negotiate your salary: A 5 W's approach - ZDNet
How to Negotiate Your Salary When You Don't Have Any Work Experience - LifeHacker
How to use a new job offer to re-negotiate your current salary - Glassdoor Blog
I'm a salary negotiator. Here are 6 things I'd never do - Business Insider ($)
The million-dollar mistake: Women fall short when negotiating salaries - bizwomen
Not So Fast! Ask These 5 Questions Before Signing Any Job Offer In 2026 - Metro News
This simple phrase can get you up to 20% more in compensation, according to a negotiation coach - Business Insider
Tired of unpaid internships? Here's how to negotiate pay - MSNBC
Why employees don’t negotiate compensation, according to researchers - HR Dive
Why I Teach Negotiation Skills to Undergrads - Inside Higher Ed
AI Definitions: AI Design
/AI Design – While this term typically means using AI as a tool in a design workflow (prompt literacy and workflow integration), it can also reference designing AI products, designing AI agents (how they interact with products, content, and data), or design as it relates to language models (model evaluation and collaboration with ML engineers).
Differing Approaches to AI by the US & China
/The United States is behaving as though frontier A.I. models could be the equivalent of nuclear weapons, offering an immensely destructive form of power that requires a careful and jealous watch. Meanwhile, China treats the models that its companies produce as the equivalent of nuclear energy, a lower-risk technology to be shared and commercialized to win friends and influence the world and undermine the advantages of the American A.I. giants. - Ross Douthat writing in The New York Times