A Silicon Valley nonprofit close to the AI safety movement is pledging $10 million by the end of 2027 to fund mainstream and independent coverage of artificial intelligence.
The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism plans to announce that it is launching an institutional grantmaking fund, which executive director Cillian Crosson said will provide grants to newsrooms and other ambitious AI reporting projects.
The first recipient of the grant is Machine Gods, NPR’s new video podcast from former Hard Fork hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, which is receiving a $480,000 grant from the organization. Tarbell is also separately backing NPR’s “Power and Influence” desk, giving the public media outlet $250,000 to help expand its coverage of how AI intersects with politics, money, and power.
“We think that having resources at newsrooms is an important part of ensuring strong coverage,” Crosson told Semafor. The new fund will “increase our support but it also allows us to more easily support a more diverse range of perspectives.”
The organization, which is backed by groups including the deep-pocketed nonprofit Coefficient Giving, said it plans to fund investigative teams, AI verticals at national outlets, and other large-scale initiatives in new and legacy media. In particular, the organization is focused on expanding reporting and on frontier companies and the ways that AI companies and aligned political action groups are influencing American politics and tech regulations.
It’s a significant expansion from the organization’s previous commitments, which have totaled $400,000 over four years. Tarbell’s previous grants focused on backing early-career journalists inside established newsrooms, offering media organizations reporting grants ranging from $1,000 to $20,000 to work on individual stories on AI.
With increased monetary backing, the organization said it planned to issue grants between $50,000 and $500,000, but could make multimillion-dollar grants for the right projects.