Ten million dollars. That’s the new sum OpenAI is putting behind the Lenfest Institute’s AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program. The company has doubled its earlier support. Local newsrooms are under pressure. AI-powered search and automation are cutting into their traffic and revenue. OpenAI’s official announcement breaks down the funding: five million in cash, up to five million in software credits and engineering help. This is a big jump for the program.
The Lenfest AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program was launched as a two-year model, embedding AI engineers within newsroom teams rather than offering one-time grants.
The first group started in October 2024. AI fellows went to eleven metro newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Banner, and The Minnesota Star Tribune. Now, with OpenAI’s new money-five million in cash, five million in credits-the program will reach local TV news and statewide public service journalism. Microsoft helped fund the first ten million but has not decided if it will renew support after 2027. The Lenfest Institute's program overview confirms: local newsroom leaders manage the fellows, not Lenfest, OpenAI, or Microsoft. Editorial independence stays local.
Jim Friedlich, Lenfest’s executive director and CEO, says the program works because it’s local and gives teams control. Fellows choose their own tech. They answer to newsroom leaders, not outside sponsors. Friedlich says this keeps AI as a tool to help, not replace, reporters and writers. Lenfest will not fund newsrooms that want to use AI to cut journalists. The Institute backs "responsible AI experimentation and implementation" and wants AI to help journalists do their jobs, not take them away.
Tom Rubin, chief of intellectual property and content at OpenAI, stated that in the first two years of the partnership, journalists demonstrated numerous practical ways to use AI for delivering quality local news, and OpenAI aims to expand support to even more journalists.
Collaboration is at the heart of the Lenfest fellowship. Newsrooms join shared Slack channels. They go to summits with training from OpenAI and Microsoft. They get help for journalism conferences. When The Philadelphia Inquirer built Dewey, an open-source tool for working with archives, fellows at The Baltimore Banner and Chicago Public Media quickly adapted it for their own needs. They even tweaked it for radio transcripts. The code is on GitHub for any newsroom to use. Lenfest now wants more reusable AI tools that others can pick up fast.
To push this work, Lenfest hired Sonali Verma, known for Sophi at Canada’s Globe and Mail, to lead outreach. A new newsletter, Context Window, will share lessons and link to tools and resources. The goal is to speed up adoption across the industry. Chase Davis, who led The Minnesota Star Tribune’s AI Lab, is now technical lead. He will help newsrooms turn their AI tools into real products.
What’s next? Lenfest wants all eleven current newsrooms to reapply for the next grant cycle. Only about half will get in. That leaves space for new outlets. Friedlich is watching how AI can help the business side of local TV news and support accountability reporting on state legislatures. The expansion comes as publishers everywhere rethink how they make money, especially as Indian news organizations face the same AI-driven shakeup.
OpenAI’s new commitment goes beyond Lenfest. The company is also backing the Product & AI Studio run by The American Journalism Project. That’s five million in cash and three million in credits for over fifty nonprofit newsrooms to try out AI. OpenAI is also giving more than four hundred enterprise-level ChatGPT accounts to students and faculty at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. More donations to journalism schools may be coming.
By putting technical talent inside newsrooms and focusing on open, reusable tools, Lenfest is betting AI can make local journalism stronger. Not weaker. Human leadership is the rule. Automation does not run the show. For publishers, the message is simple. Innovation that lasts comes from local teams, shared solutions, and keeping editorial control out of the hands of algorithms. As the industry shrinks and tries new models, newsrooms that put people first in AI projects have the best shot at surviving the next era.
OpenAI was founded in 2015. After a funding round in October 2024, it was valued at one hundred fifty-seven billion dollars. The New York Times reported this month that OpenAI may seek a new round that could push its value to one point five trillion dollars before a possible IPO. With this kind of money, OpenAI has become a major funder of journalism projects. The company now sits at the center of the AI and news business world.
