As a new academic year begins, journalism schools face a defining challenge: how to prepare students for a profession being reshaped by AI.
At Stanford, Djordje Padejski continues a journey he began years earlier. Now associate director of the JSK Journalism Fellowships, he has been wrestling with this question longer than most. A veteran investigative journalist and educator, he launched one of the earliest AI-focused journalism courses at Arizona State University before bringing it to Stanford last year. His classroom has become a lab where students not only use AI tools but also examine them.
In this week’s episode, Djordje shares how he structures his course and what journalism schools must do to prepare the next generation of journalists.
Here are three takeaways from our conversation:
1️⃣ Don’t Ban AI, Make It a Learning Tool
When AI first appeared in classrooms, the knee-jerk reaction was to ban it. Djordje took the opposite approach: he required students to disclose exactly how they used AI and reflect on what it got right or wrong. His students analyzed the technology’s limits instead of avoiding it.
Thanks to Djordje’s support, we’re sharing his syllabus with you here as a resource.
2️⃣ Focus Less on the Product, More on the Process
Instead of grading polished essays that AI could easily generate, Djordje emphasized in-class discussions, live experiments, and peer critiques. His students also pursued semester-long projects exploring AI’s role in areas such as surveillance, healthcare, and self-driving cars.
3️⃣ Every Beat Is Now an AI Beat
Whether covering healthcare, politics, or business, reporters are already seeing AI reshape their subjects. For Djordje, that means AI education isn’t an elective but a core requirement. You don’t need to be a coder, but you do need to understand how AI works.
As students return to classrooms this fall, it’s a moment of opportunity. AI can churn out headlines and summaries, but it can’t exercise judgment, understand an audience, or hold power to account. Djordje’s approach is a reminder that if we teach journalism students to examine AI, not fear it or blindly embrace it, we’ll shape a generation fluent in tomorrow’s tools and rooted in journalism’s values.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation with Djordje Padejski on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or other major podcast platforms.
