Mira Lowe
| Your Turn
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Journalism schools are teaching ethics and accountability regarding AI, not fear of the future.Students are taught to use AI as an aid for tasks like research and idea generation, not as a substitute for human judgment.Journalism programs aim to produce graduates who can critically evaluate AI tools for bias, accuracy, and privacy implications.
There is an ongoing national conversation about whether journalism schools are keeping pace with the rapid integration of artificial intelligence in newsrooms. An editor at the Cleveland Plain Dealer recently argued that journalism schools are “teaching fear of the future,” pointing to students who question newsrooms that rely on AI. He concludes that higher‑ed programs are lagging behind industry needs. I value the concern, but that narrative misreads what responsible journalism education does.
At Florida A&M University’s School of Journalism & Graphic Communication (SJGC), we don’t teach fear. We teach ethics, skepticism and accountability — the very capacities that uphold journalism’s integrity and its essential role in society.
Here’s what that looks like on our campus.
We ground everything in fundamentals. Verification, research and reporting are nonnegotiable. Students produce work across platforms and deadlines that mirror real newsrooms. We layer in emerging tools not as tricks, but as transparent processes that require source evaluation, documentation and disclosure. AI may assist the work, but it never substitutes for human judgment.
We treat AI as interdisciplinary literacy. Journalism now intersects with data, design and public policy, and our graduates must be fluent not only in the tools but in their civic implications — bias, privacy, labor, environmental impact, information integrity and the expanding reach of algorithmic systems. That isn’t technophobia. It’s responsible preparation for a world where technology shapes everyday life.
We’re hands-on in the classroom. We use Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT and other generative AI assistants to support idea generation, structure testing and analysis — always under instructor-set guardrails. We train students to use AI as an aid, teaching them to trace sources, challenge outputs and spot hallucinations. We teach research with Perplexity AI to surface sources and citations quickly while evaluating credibility.
And we model what we expect. This fall, we convened “AI in Action: Leveraging Technology in Teaching, Research & Workflow,” a faculty-staff retreat focused on using AI responsibly in curricula, scholarship and operations. When faculty build fluency, students benefit — and the profession gains colleagues who can tell substance from hype.
So, are journalism schools lagging? The truth is more complex. Technology is moving quickly, and ethical frameworks are still taking shape — even inside newsrooms. Universities shouldn’t be tool-chasers. They should be standard-bearers. Our responsibility is to instill analytical habits so graduates can evaluate any new system they encounter. That’s how we future-proof journalists.
A recent article by Poynter.org, suggests that journalism students are more skeptical of AI than we think. There’s no evidence that journalism students who question AI are hurting their chances at jobs or internships. In fact, reporting from Poynter and others shows their skepticism mirrors the concerns inside newsrooms themselves about accuracy, bias, transparency, and trust. Employers increasingly want journalists who can evaluate AI, not blindly adopt it.
When students raise questions about AI — about accuracy, ethics and accountability — I see something promising. I see young reporters exercising the very instincts that strengthen public-interest journalism. Those aren’t signs of fear. They’re signs of readiness.
My invitation to newsroom leaders across the country is simple: partner with us. Tell us what’s working and what’s not. Co-develop transparency norms. Pilot AI workflows with our students in internships and capstones. You’ll meet graduates who are tech-literate, ethically grounded and ready to lead.
Students aren’t afraid of the future. They’re eager to shape it with curiosity, courage and care. Our responsibility, in both classrooms and newsrooms, is to ensure the tools we adopt strengthen the public’s trust. That’s not fear. That’s journalism.
Mira Lowe is dean of the School of Journalism & Graphic Communication at Florida A&M University.
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