The Bay Agenda: AI and Journalism

Join KALW for a live conversation with Bay Area media leaders exploring how AI is already transforming journalism and what comes next.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how journalism is produced, distributed, and trusted. From newsroom experimentation to ethical dilemmas around authorship, bias, and accountability, what does this moment mean for reporters, editors, and the public?

You’ll hear from:

• Katherine Ann Rowlands, who leads Bay City News Foundation and is actively experimenting with ethical AI use in local newsrooms
• Ernesto Aguilar of KQED, who oversees content innovation and leads AI initiatives in public media
• Griffin Gaffney, CEO and co-founder of The San Francisco Standard, bringing a startup and systems perspective to media transformation
• Ben Trefny, Executive Producer at KALW, shaping journalism through live events, training, and partnerships

Together, they’ll explore:

• How newsrooms are actually using AI today
• Where AI can strengthen reporting and where it creates risk
• Questions of trust, transparency, and editorial control
• What the future of journalism might look like in an AI-driven media landscape

Whether you're a journalist, technologist, student, or curious news consumer, this is a chance to engage directly with the people shaping the next era of media.

Katherine Ann Rowlands runs Bay City News Foundation, a nonprofit that publishes journalism for the greater SF Bay Area at LocalNewsMatters.org and The Mendocino Voice. She is also publisher of Bay City News, an affiliated regional newswire supplying trustworthy, original journalism for the media ecosystem, from TV and radio to legacy newspapers to start-up digital outlets. She is co-founder of Women Do News, a project to improve the representation of women journalists on Wikipedia, and past president of Journalism & Women Symposium. She is president of the board of First Amendment Coalition.

Her team actively experiments with practical and ethical uses of AI in the newsroom.

Ernesto Aguilar is Executive Director of Radio Programming and Content Innovation Initiatives at KQED. Born in East Houston, Aguilar’s life was transformed by public media. His career has traversed daily newspapers and alternative weeklies to public radio news and program director roles. At KQED, he oversees radio broadcast content and a range of initiatives in the organization’s Content division, including leading its AI Working Group. Prior to KQED, Aguilar served stations nationwide for five years as executive director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. A Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Fellow, Sulzberger Executive Leadership Fellow, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY AI in Journalism Leadership cohort selection and Public Media CEO/COO Bootcamp graduate, Aguilar has a B.A. in journalism, with minors in sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of Houston. In his spare time, he writes AI and Public Media Futures, a newsletter on AI in the public radio and television space; and OIGO, a newsletter on public media and Latino audiences.

Griffin Gaffney is the CEO and Co-Founder of The San Francisco Standard since January 2021. Prior to this, Gaffney was a Community Organizer at TogetherSF from March 2020 to June 2021. Gaffney also served as the Head of Account Management at Humu from May 2018 to March 2020. Gaffney’s earlier experience includes being a founding sales team member at Stripe from June 2014 to May 2018, where they initially focused on partnering with venture capital firms and startups in London before transitioning to the marketing team in San Francisco. Before that, Gaffney worked as an Associate at LinkedIn from September 2013 to May 2014. Additionally, Gaffney had a brief role in product management at Nutmeg in 2012.

Ben Trefny has been part of the KALW family since 2003, where he currently serves as Executive Producer. As Executive News Editor, News Director, and Interim Executive Director, he helped the news department win numerous regional and national awards for long- and short-form journalism. He also helped create numerous training programs — for teenagers, incarcerated people, and early-career journalists — and has taught hundreds of audio producers. His current work focuses on journalism, live events, and partnerships.

Come early to see Raymundo Valdez's Prismatic City: Landmarks in Light, a solo art exhibition showing the city as it lives: layered, luminous, & constantly changing. The show is on view at KALW’s Live Event Studio Art Gallery through April.

There is a $10 - $20 sliding scale suggested donation for this event. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.

Please become a KALW member today and receive your first drink on us at all 220 Montgomery events.

📍 220 Montgomery St., San Francisco, 2 blocks from BART/MUNI

🚪 Reception doors open at 5:30

🗣️ Program begins at 6:00

🆓 The event is free with an RSVP — and you are welcome to donate what you want

Please note:

• The event space is just to the left of the main entrance to the Mills Building at 220 Montgomery Street
• We recommend taking BART/MUNI, exiting at Montgomery, and walking two blocks north
• Ride-shares can drop off and pick up directly in front of the venue
• If you drive, there are several garages within two blocks of the event location; free street parking is available across from the venue at 7:00 pm