This last week, some journalists were invited to participate in the training initiative, titled “AI for Journalists: U.S. Technologies Transforming News Production,” in various parts of Nigeria. Organised by the Press Office of the Public Diplomacy Section under the U.S. Embassy in Abuja and the Consulate General in Lagos, the sessions were to equip journalists with practical skills and ethical workflows to handle US-developed AI tools for the modern newsroom.
The programme was executed as a synchronised, nationwide hybrid workshop broadcast across multiple American Spaces and Corners in Lagos, Abuja, Uyo, Calabar, Sokoto, Edo, Bauchi, and Katsina. Lagos had centres in Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikeja, and the University of Lagos where I met with many young journalists at the Unilag American Corner and they were eager to tap into the tools that will make their research, reporting and writing easier and faster.
The first session on Monday, August 24, 2026 focused on newsroom integration and workflow; the resource person was Chris Coates who is Senior Director of Local News at Lee Enterprises. Chris is credited with over 20 years of newsroom leadership, including serving as the Executive Editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In his current executive role at Lee Enterprises he drives editorial strategy, digital transformation, and newsroom innovation across a vast network of over 70 local news organisations operating in 25 US states.
Coates emphasised that AI replaces tasks, not journalists, to douse the belief that AI will lead to job losses. He demonstrated how generative AI can be integrated safely into journalistic workflows to ingest and interrogate massive documents such as navigating huge documents that has thousands of pages to get your story, instructing journalists to ask targeted, investigative questions rather than relying on surface-level summaries, while warning that AI is never a source and all outputs must be rigorously context-checked. Maintaining that ChatGpt was well ahead of others, he also recommended Claude and others, advising against depending on free versions of any tool because they cannot provide quality and accurate information like paid versions. He advised journalists to purchase these tools and avoid the free ones that will make errors and mistakes. Coates stressed human-AI collaboration, as AI is a tool to automate gruelling manual labour like transcription and data crunching, thus freeing up journalists for critical thinking, ethics, and boots-on-the-ground investigative reporting.
He also emphasied the need for each media house to establish an AI policy and use only secure tools that are robust, advising that, “If you use AI, you should disclose it”.
Session 2 on Thursday, August 27, 2026 focused on Practical Storytelling Tools with Ken Kiunga, of Kenya, a Google News Initiative (GNI) Trainer for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Kiunga possesses more than 10 years of media expertise spanning print, digital, and broadcast platforms across Africa and he routinely trains African journalists on utilising digital innovation ecosystems.
Kiunga’s session focused on practical, hands-on integration of digital tools. He walked participants through advanced AI tools like Google Gemini, GoogleTrends, Gems, Gemini Canvas, NotebookLM, and Deep Research. The session covered document analysis, investigative verification, and using AI-powered generation for visual storytelling, video production, and graphic aids. Kiunga outlined the specific tech toolkit introduced by Google’s trainer, NotebookLM for document anchoring, Deep Research for sourcing, and visual models for multimedia engagement.
This AI training for journalists is not only a Nigerian project for the American government. The US Department of State, through the US Embassies, has been deploying training framework worldwide to counter disinformation and maintain professional media integrity. For instance, in Papua New Guinea, the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Port Moresby recently hosted its debut AI media workshop titled, “Next-Gen Newsrooms: Empowering Journalists for the AI Age”. Similar to the Nigerian series, it featured cross-continental partnerships pairing US tech experts with local media specialists to foster safe, secure, and trustworthy AI adoption.
The Nigeria sessions are obviously part of the global push for AI literacy by the US government in a coordinated global diplomatic initiative to establish cross-border ethical parameters for AI in the media.
From the questions asked by participants across the venues in Nigeria, it is clear that there is a lot of ignorance about AI among media practitioners, not only with those covering rural areas and the older practitioners, but even with the younger journalists. Many writers are also becoming lazy and practically use AI for almost all they write, without even bothering to let their audience know that they used AI for the tasks. There is still much to be done to douse the myth about AI taking over the jobs of journalists. But there is also no doubt that the interest to know about the tools is increasing and the onus is on each media house – Radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, online and even freelancers – to train themselves and their employees to derive maximum benefit from AI and its tools.
The Head of the American Corner in Unilag is Dr. Mrs. Tenny Egwuatu, an Associate Professor in the university’s Microbiology department who used the opportunity of the training to brief participants about the activities at the centre which is barely 6 months old. She encouraged the journalists and their friends to make use of the library and other facilities, while also encouraging those looking for study and scholarship opportunities in the US to go through the resources at the centre.
Nigeria has the highest number of American Spaces in Africa, with 25 locations across 21 cities.These hubs include American Corners and Windows on America and provide free access to learning, digital tools, and community programmes.They offer digital access, free computers, internet, and databases like eLibraryUSA for research. They organise programmes like workshops on coding, entrepreneurship, leadership, and English language learning, while also providing information about studying in the United States through EducationUSA. The spaces are found in universities and cultural centres across the 21 Nigerian cities, including Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Kaduna, and Benin City.
