In the AI age, publishers who understand what readers want …

[AI & Journalism

AI](https://www.niemanlab.org/beats/ai-journalism/) [Search & Platforms

Search & Platforms](https://www.niemanlab.org/beats/search-platforms/) [Audience & Creators

Audience & Creators](https://www.niemanlab.org/beats/audience-creators/) [Local News

Local News](https://www.niemanlab.org/beats/local-news/) [Reporting & Production

Reporting](https://www.niemanlab.org/beats/reporting-production/) [Business & Revenue

Revenue](https://www.niemanlab.org/beats/business-revenue/)

About Nieman Lab Subscribe Archives Contact

Nieman Foundation Nieman Fellowships Nieman Reports Nieman Storyboard

Appearance

Auto

Light

Dark

Text size

Get Nieman Lab in your inbox.

All the latest headlines and insights from the world of digital journalism and publishing. Our daily newsletter is a must-read from newsrooms to executive suites.

Leave this empty

Email address

Name (optional)

We will never sell your address. Prefer a weekly email?

Nearly there — check your email.

We have sent a confirmation link to . Click it and you are on the list. If it has not turned up in a minute or two, it may be in your spam folder.

Subscribe another address

In the AI age, publishers who understand what readers want will do best, a new report argues

Link journalism.cuny.edu ↗

Posted by Laura Hazard Owen

October 22, 2026

AI inverts the traditional journalism hierarchy: Instead of reporters gathering information, editors deciding how to present it, and newsrooms releasing the same final story to everyone, AI agents deliver what readers ask for, refining or expanding on information as requested.

It’s “an interactive process in a way the current news system isn’t,” write the authors of “ The Three-Layer Cake: Public-Interest Information in an AI-Intermediated Age ,” released Wednesday by the Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. (The cake’s three layers are “the products that identify what people want to know, the systems that synthesize answers, and the organizations that produce the underlying reporting.”)

Some interesting ideas from the report by Gina Chua and Adiel Kaplan :

This new age may be better for some readers. The authors write:

> There are people the old system never reached, or never reached well. A parent who hears of school budget cuts may want to know if their child’s elementary school art class will survive. No newsroom would assign that story. It matters to a handful of families whose children attend a single school, and the exact answer is uncertain. A well-designed AI system could pull together what is known from reporting and context and offer a nuanced response — fulfilling an information need that previously did not have enough economic power to be met directly. > > Similarly, minority communities whose concerns didn’t rise to the level of interest of a city newspaper might have rarely seen their perspectives reflected in coverage in the past. Coverage in the mainstream media of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s was often focused on the risk to the heterosexual population rather than on the gay community it ravaged. An AI system that can access information from and about underserved communities could rectify that.

Publishers opting out could make the information environment worse. If news organizations seek to prevent AI from using their content, they may contribute to a poorer “information commons,” the authors argue. It “works as a strategy for individual organizations, but cedes the broader mission of providing information to the vast majority of the public to others who may not have the public’s interests at heart.”

Scoops and exclusives are a “luxury” — and they’re losing value fast.

> Even a pivot to investigative reporting, as important a public good as that is, is not necessarily a solution. Much of investigative journalism is summarizable once it is published, even if the original story breaks important news and is a delight to read. As Francesco Marconi > noted > , a multi-month investigation could cost a newsroom $200,000 in resources, then drop in economic value to close to zero within minutes of publication. Both investigations and scoops can have huge social value and help build a brand, but economically, they provide little lasting value to their newsrooms — and even less so in an AI-intermediated landscape.

“Commoditized news” isn’t saving anyone. Publishers have to make “hard choices” about what they’ll cover, the authors write:

> In an AI-intermediated world, commoditized news carries little value, especially if it’s already available in some other form. That’s not to say that day-to-day coverage of municipal government, a core task of many local newsrooms, should go away; only that its coverage needs to be differentiated from what could be found elsewhere or summarized from a meeting transcript, for it to hold value. Differentiation might involve adding context to the coverage through original reporting, or asking questions that wouldn’t otherwise be asked at a press conference. > > The deeper and more specialized a newsroom’s area of coverage and expertise is, the less likely it is to be duplicated by other organizations — and that provides both pricing power and closer links to the communities that value such information.

The report is here . Read excerpts from a talk that coauthor Chua gave to Nieman Fellows here .

Get Nieman Lab’s Daily Digest

The most important stories about journalism and the future of news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon.

Laura Hazard Owen is the editor of Nieman Lab. You can reach her via email , Bluesky , or Signal (laurahazardowen.38).

October 22, 2026

See more on AI & Journalism

The latest from Nieman Lab

U.K. politicians and German publishers call on regulators to pause Meta’s new terms before October 30 deadline

Andrew Deck, Hanaa’ Tameez

The Wall Street Journal’s new AI tool, “Doppler,” forecasts the issues that will shape the midterm elections

Andrew Deck

Two out of five Americans regularly get their news on Facebook

Hanaa’ Tameez

When hackers become sources: Inside the new craft of reporting on hacked data

Philip Di Salvo

“Convenings” for CEOs will help Semafor reach a second profitable year

Sarah Scire

Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard

Walter Lippmann House, One Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138

(617) 495-2237