Stewarding the stories that power tries to silence

As 2026 approaches, journalism finds itself in a dangerous kind of forgetfulness. Hard-won truths grow quieter by the day; the racial reckoning that once roared through newsrooms now echoes faintly beneath a tightening political silence. In that hush, the future of news hinges upon one assignment — remembering what power hopes we forget.

And so we enter a moment of transformation. Journalists must shift from gatekeepers of the immediate to custodians of collective memory, responsible not only for telling stories in real time but for preserving and contextualizing them for communities long misrepresented or erased. The tools ushering in this shift are not the hulking large language models that dominate news headlines, but the smaller, steadier, community-rooted AI archives blooming in places once written off as peripheral.

This shift arrives as the political climate freezes the very conversations journalists are trained to lead. Reporters say they hesitate now — to speak of race, to probe injustice, to bring the clarity and courage they carried in 2020’s wake. Anti-DEI legislation has swept across the nation. Newsroom diversity programs have been dismantled quietly. Beats that once centered marginalized communities have been erased or absorbed. The nation’s memory has grown fragile again.

At the same time, generative AI reveals a widening paradox: we are drowning in information yet starving for understanding. Mis- and disinformation spread with viral ease. Trust in institutions — including the press — remains alarmingly low. And journalists reporting in politically charged environments face mounting threats, harassment, and state-level restrictions. In this landscape, accuracy is not enough; context becomes the most precious resource we have left.

That is why 2026 will mark the rise of algorithmic witnessing — a movement that uses AI not to replace journalists, but to extend the reach of the communities they serve. Newsrooms will collaborate with scholars, archivists, technologists, and neighbors to build AI-powered oral history repositories that honor lived experience. Rather than asking AI to summarize the world, journalists will ask it to listen: to hold testimony, surface patterns, and illuminate truths at risk of erasure.

These archives will not feign neutrality. They will be crafted deliberately. Much like the digitization of special collections two decades ago, news organizations will adopt ethically trained, community-informed AI systems to support reporters. They will consult these archives the way they consult public records: as living, breathing evidence that reveals connections, exposes harms, and elevates voices too long ignored.

This marks a profound shift. Journalism’s next breakthroughs will not emerge from Silicon Valley’s laboratories but from the communities with the most to lose when misrepresentation becomes automated. Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and rural communities will lead the way in shaping storytelling technologies that protect them — treating data as sacred, memory as a right, and visibility as a form of survival.

In turn, this will reshape journalism education. By the end of 2026, more universities will adopt courses like the ones I teach at USC Annenberg — The Second Draft Project, Reporting on Race, and the emerging AI and the Black Public Sphere — which train students to build and critique AI systems grounded in transparency and public accountability. Future reporters will learn to audit AI outputs and co-create archives with the people they cover.

Newsrooms, too, will rethink the very notion of a “source.” In an era of interactive archives, the public will not only speak to the news — it will speak back. Sources will become co-stewards of memory, not just interview subjects. Under-resourced communities will gain permanence. And journalists will shift from crisis chasers to leaders of long-running civic conversations.

By the close of 2026, the most influential journalism projects will be those that build infrastructure for remembering — not the flashiest bots or the fastest feeds, but the most carefully constructed digital testimony. Archives that refuse erasure. Archives that help communities understand their place in the long arc of history.

In an age of vanishing truths, what endures is what we choose to protect — and the technologies we shape in service of that protection. Journalism’s next era will not be automated; it will be anchored. And in 2026, the press will begin rediscovering its oldest purpose: to bear witness — fully, fiercely, and with care for those who were almost written out of the record.