Kristen Welker, the moderator of NBC News’s Meet the Press, is known for sitting across from presidents, senators, and the most powerful figures in American life, asking the kind of questions that cut through political spin. But recently, in a conversation that echoed beyond the Washington studio, Welker turned her attention to a different kind of challenge, one that is not waiting for the next election cycle or the next press briefing. She urged journalists to educate themselves about artificial intelligence. It was a quiet but forceful reminder that the news industry is standing on the edge of a profound transformation, and that the reporters who will thrive in this new era are not necessarily the ones with the most impressive Rolodexes or the sharpest instincts for breaking news. They are the ones who understand how AI works, what it can do, and what it cannot. Welker’s message was not a dramatic warning about killer robots or a utopian promise of automated journalism. It was something more practical, more human, and perhaps more urgent: AI is already in the newsroom, already shaping the information we consume, already rewriting the rules of evidence and trust. If journalists do not take the time to understand it, they will not just be left behind; they will be complicit in the very confusion and misinformation they are supposed to fight.
At the heart of Welker’s plea is a simple but profound idea: literacy. In the past, a good journalist was expected to know history, politics, economics, and the basics of science. Today, that education must include artificial intelligence. This is not just about being able to define terms like machine learning, natural language processing, or neural networks. It is about understanding how AI systems are trained, how they can reflect the biases of their creators, how they can produce confident but false information, and how they can be used to generate fake images, fake voices, and fake realities. Welker, who has spent years verifying facts and questioning sources, knows that the old methods of verification are no longer enough. A journalist can no longer simply ask, “Who told you this?” or “Where did this document come from?” because the answer might be that no human told anyone anything, and the document might have been generated by an algorithm designed to look authoritative. The skills of a good journalist—skepticism, curiosity, and the discipline of checking before publishing—are more valuable than ever, but they must be applied to a new and often invisible landscape. If a journalist does not understand that a generative AI program can fabricate a quote, invent a statistic, or create a plausible-looking photograph of an event that never happened, then that journalist is vulnerable to being manipulated, and worse, to manipulating the public.
Welker’s message, however, is not simply a warning against AI. She is too seasoned a journalist to see technology in black and white. She understands that AI, like every tool before it, carries both promise and peril. In her view, journalists who take the time to educate themselves will discover that AI can be an incredible ally in their work. It can help transcribe interviews in seconds, sort through thousands of pages of public records, identify patterns in data that a human might miss, and even translate stories across languages, opening doors to global audiences. For a journalist who has spent long hours combing through documents or trying to make sense of a massive spreadsheet, these possibilities are not abstract; they are liberation from the most tedious parts of the job. The goal is not to replace the journalist but to free the journalist to do the work that matters most: asking better questions, building deeper relationships with sources, and crafting stories that illuminate the human condition. Welker’s approach is humanizing because it does not treat AI as a mysterious oracle or a sinister enemy. It treats AI as a tool, like a tape recorder or a camera, which is only as good as the person using it. A tape recorder does not decide what is newsworthy, and a camera does not choose the moment to press the shutter. Similarly, an AI system cannot tell a journalist what is true, what is fair, or what is relevant. Those judgments require human wisdom, human empathy, and human accountability.
But the flip side of this optimism is a danger that Welker did not shy away from: the danger of ignorance. If journalists fail to educate themselves, they will not only miss opportunities; they will actively harm the public trust. Consider, for example, the rise of deepfakes. A few years ago, a manipulated video of a politician or a celebrity might have been a crude parody, easily spotted. Today, AI can generate realistic video and audio of anyone saying almost anything, and the technology is improving every day. A journalist who cannot recognize the signs of synthetic media might accidentally broadcast a fake clip as breaking news, spreading a lie to millions of people. The same applies to text. AI-generated articles, press releases, and social media posts can be produced at almost no cost, making it easier than ever to flood the information ecosystem with propaganda, rumors, and outright falsehoods. Welker’s point is that journalists are the gatekeepers, the ones who are supposed to separate fact from fiction. But they can only do that if they understand the machinery of deception. She also reminded her audience that AI does not just create content; it also decides what content we see. Algorithms on social media platforms determine which stories go viral and which are buried, often rewarding outrage, novelty, and fear over accuracy and nuance. A journalist who does not understand these algorithms is like a reporter in a foreign country who does not speak the language, able to see the surface but blind to the currents underneath.
So what does it actually mean for journalists to educate themselves on AI? Welker’s advice is refreshingly practical. She does not call for every reporter to become a computer scientist or to spend months learning to code. Instead, she urges them to build a working familiarity with the tools and concepts that are shaping their profession. That means reading about AI, attending trainings and workshops, and, most importantly, experimenting with the technology firsthand. There is no better way to understand the limitations of a generative AI model than to ask it to write a news article and see how it handles a complex, nuanced topic. It might produce fluent prose that sounds plausible, but if the journalist digs deeper, they will find that the AI has invented sources, misrepresented data, or missed the entire point of the story. That experience is not just educational; it is humbling. Welker also emphasized the need for ethical guidelines and transparency. Newsrooms should have clear rules about when AI can be used, how it should be disclosed, and who is responsible for the accuracy of the final product. If an AI tool was used to generate a summary of a public document, readers should know that. If an algorithm helped sort thousands of emails, editors should be transparent about the process. This is not just about honesty; it is about preserving the relationship between journalists and their audiences, a relationship that is already under stress. People are more likely to trust the news if they understand how it was made, and that includes understanding the role of AI.
In the end, Welker’s call is not just about protecting the journalism profession; it is about protecting the public. She speaks as someone who has witnessed firsthand how quickly misinformation can spread and how easily the truth can be drowned out in a flood of digital noise. But she also speaks with a sense of hope. Journalists have always adapted to new technologies. They learned to use the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone, the television, and the internet. Each of these changes brought fear and uncertainty, and each time, journalists found ways to use the new tools to tell stories better and reach more people. AI is the next chapter in that long history. It will be messy, and there will be mistakes, but it does not have to be the end of journalism. It could be the beginning of a more efficient, more creative, and more curious kind of reporting. The key, Welker insists, is education. Not just a single workshop or a checklist, but an ongoing commitment to learning, questioning, and adapting. Journalists need to be brave enough to admit what they do not know and humble enough to learn from technologists, researchers, and even their younger colleagues. Above all, they need to remember why they became journalists in the first place: to serve the public, to seek the truth, and to tell the stories that matter. AI cannot do any of those things by itself. But with educated, ethical, and empathetic journalists at the helm, it can be a powerful partner in the search for truth. The future of news is not artificial, and it is not automatic. It is human. And the time to start preparing for it is now.