Journalism has never been short of people willing to explain what is wrong with it.
Declining revenues. Disappearing audiences. Eroding trust. Powerful technology companies capture an ever-greater share of the economic value created on the information market. And now, AI threatens to disrupt not only how journalism is distributed, but how it is produced, experienced and valued.
The challenges are real, and many are profound. Yet sometimes I wonder whether we have become a little too comfortable talking about them. We seem to have developed an industry identity around being under siege: our work is indispensable, yet insufficiently appreciated; our competitors are ruthless, our audiences distracted, and the future perpetually threatening.
Perhaps that is understandable. Journalism is, after all, a profession largely built around scrutinising issues. But I worry that our ability to diagnose what is wrong has outpaced our willingness to imagine what could be right.
The responsibility to imagine what’s next
I believe those of us who care about journalism have a responsibility to do more than identify challenges, defend established practices and assign blame. To me, that includes undertaking the intellectually demanding work of imagining alternatives.
What might journalism become? What could it offer people that it does not today? What new forms of value might emerge as technology changes the possibilities for producing, sharing and using information? And what would we need to change about ourselves and our organisations to realise them? These are questions requiring us to challenge assumptions that have shaped our professional identities, organisations and business models for decades, if not centuries.
As David Caswell writes in his essay for this anthology, the situation facing journalism "is deeply uncomfortable and is made more so by the lack of any clearly defined path forward”. But the absence of a clear route ahead does not absolve us of the responsibility to find one.
Technology companies routinely invest enormous resources in imagining radically different futures and building towards them. Meanwhile, editorial media too often finds itself responding to developments initiated elsewhere. We debate the implications of technologies, products and business models that others have already decided to pursue. I would like us to spend more time setting the agenda ourselves.
Journalism needs more competing ideas, more willingness to be proven wrong, and perhaps most of all, more courage to act in new ways. That requires leadership in editorial media organisations to create the conditions for people to update their skills and behaviours to meet the demands of new realities. And on an individual level, journalism practitioners across roles and contexts must seize the opportunity to expand their portfolios of journalistic skills.
Why this anthology?
In 2020, Olle Zachrison and I founded Nordic AI Journalism to enable collaborative exploration of AI and journalism. Our ambition has always been to bring together people from different disciplines, organisations and perspectives to exchange knowledge, challenge assumptions and explore shared opportunities in pursuit of responsible AI developments in our region and beyond. Since 2023, our annual Nordic AI in Media Summit in Copenhagen has served as one of the main arenas for those conversations.
At this year's summit, taking place in May 2026, we had invited a number of keynote presenters and workshop facilitators to challenge our community to think more radically different about what might lie ahead for journalism. Together with Fojo Media Institute, we have now invited them to develop their ideas into essays.
The brief was the same for everyone: articulate a compelling vision for the future of journalism in an AI-mediated world. The writers’ responses were anything but homogenous. Some contributors offer ambitious theoretical frameworks for understanding an entirely new information economy. Others imagine future newsrooms, products and professional roles building on personal newsroom experience. Some propose concrete updates in business models or organisational practices. Others question the assumptions that underpin our ambitions in the first place.
As the project lead and editor, I have deliberately chosen not to impose a uniform style, level of abstraction or degree of optimism. The contributors bring different experiences, intellectual traditions and professional perspectives, and I want those differences to remain visible. That is, after all, part of the beauty of human creativity. Give eleven people the same question, and you are unlikely to receive eleven versions of the same answer.
I have not asked the invited writers to disclose the details of their use of AI in the process building towards these essays. As their editor, I trust that the writers have used the best biological and technological tools they have available to ideate, iterate and deliver their essays.
Different visions, shared responsibilities
The essays do not present a unified roadmap for journalism's future, nor should they. In fact, I find that some of the most interesting insights emerge from the tensions between them.
David Caswell argues for a more scientific form of journalism to exist alongside the humanistic traditions of the profession. Martin Schori, meanwhile, imagines a future in which distinctly human, subjective qualities such as voice and relationships become journalism's most important competitive advantages.
Shuwei Fang envisions an information economy in which machines increasingly consume and act upon information on behalf of people. Ezra Eeman asks us to consider what might be lost if we optimise information experiences so thoroughly that we leave little room for surprise, reflection and independent judgement.
Nikita Roy imagines newsrooms that maintain ongoing relationships with the questions people need answered, while Sofie Hvitved explores how organisations might become better at remembering, learning and questioning their own assumptions.
These are not necessarily opposing visions, but they emphasise different possibilities, priorities and risks. And they remind us that technological capability does not determine what journalism ought to become.
What strikes me most, however, is how many of the contributors return to the importance of deliberate choices.
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen asks news organisations to consider not only how they use AI, but how they choose to explain those choices to the public. Kasper Lindskow outlines distinct strategic positions that publishers might pursue in a changing information economy. Gard Steiro calls for constructive paranoia: an honest recognition of the threats ahead, coupled with the determination to act despite uncertainty.
Their arguments differ, but they share an important premise: The future depends on the choices we make here and now.
Three ways of looking ahead
I have organised this anthology into three broad themes:
Rethinking Journalism begins with the most fundamental questions. As AI transforms the production, circulation and use of information, what becomes of journalism's role in society? What should remain, what might change, and how should journalism relate to the public it exists to serve?
Reinventing Value explores what journalism could offer in an information economy no longer necessarily organised around articles, websites or even direct human consumption. The essays consider new economic models, journalistic services and audience experiences, and challenge us to reconsider what makes journalism valuable.
Rebuilding Newsrooms turns the attention inward. Imagining a different future is one thing; creating organisations capable of realising it is another. Here, contributors explore the leadership, capabilities, cultures and ways of working that meaningful transformation might require.
These categories are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. Most essays could comfortably belong to more than one theme. But taken together, the essays offer perspectives to help us understand what is changing, imagine what could emerge, and create the conditions to make it happen.
This collection is inevitably incomplete. For one, journalism encompasses far more than the written article, and the futures of audio, video, visual storytelling and other forms of media deserve more attention than they receive in this anthology. Further, eleven essays, however thoughtful, cannot meaningful represent the full diversity of perspectives needed to shape journalism's future. With that in mind, consider this anthology a contribution to an ongoing conversation, rather than an attempt to settle it.
An invitation to act
I neither expect nor wish for readers to agree with every argument made in this anthology.
Instead, my hope is that you encounter at least one idea that makes you reconsider an assumption, question a familiar practice or imagine a possibility you had not previously considered. And more importantly, that you do something with it.
As media professionals, we can continue explaining why the world is changing in ways that threaten our industry or try to defend the practices that have served us well in the past. But we could also choose to imagine something better, and begin the difficult work of making it real.