Fake News at Machine Speed: Inside AI’s Impact on Media Trust

Feb 19, 2026

Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise and Poynter faculty who leads AI and newsroom ethics work. He talks about how AI reshapes misinformation and newsroom trust. He covers chatbot design and hallucination risks. He explores coding agents, practical automation for small outlets, and the growing divide between AI enthusiasts and skeptics.

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INSIGHT

Reset Trust Through Transparency

Alex Mahadevan sees AI as an opportunity to reset newsroom transparency and rebuild audience trust through public ethics policies.
He argues disclosures and explaining how journalism is made can strengthen the relationship with readers.

ADVICE

Design Chatbots To Reduce Errors

Design chatbots with retrieval-augmented generation, links, and archive training to minimize errors.
Disclose possible errors clearly and only deploy when the probability of mistakes is acceptably low.

ADVICE

Win Skeptics With Practical Wins

Show skeptics concrete examples of AI solving their daily problems rather than mandate tools top-down.
Demonstrate audience benefits and workflow improvements to build newsroom buy-in.

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Poynter’s Alex Mahadevan explains how newsrooms can use AI without losing the fundamentals of verification, context, and accountability.

By The Copilot

AI is already embedded in how people discover and consume news, from search to chat interfaces to automated summaries. So the question is no longer whether journalism will be shaped by AI. It’s how newsrooms maintain trust while experimenting responsibly.

In this episode of The Media Copilot podcast, Pete Pachal sits down with Alex Mahadevan, Director of MediaWise and a faculty member at Poynter, to unpack what media literacy looks like now that anyone can generate convincing content at scale. Alex shares how his background in data and local journalism shaped his approach to tools, why public-facing AI ethics policies matter, and what it will take for news organizations to bring audiences along for the next phase of the information ecosystem.

Why this matters

Trust is the core product. AI can either widen the trust gap with errors and low-quality content, or help rebuild credibility through transparency, better products, and clearer communication about how journalism is made. This conversation gets practical about what responsible AI use looks like, where disclosures help and where they can unintentionally slow innovation, and why the newsroom AI divide is becoming a real competitive advantage for organizations that adapt.

What we cover

• Alex’s journey into journalism and the global mission of MediaWise

• How AI is reshaping misinformation, trust, and newsroom transparency

• Practical uses of chatbots, coding agents, and AI workflows

• The widening divide between AI enthusiasts and skeptics in newsrooms

• Ethics, job concerns, and gray areas around AI-assisted writing

• What the future of news may look like beyond traditional articles

About the 👤 Guest

🔗Alex Mahadevan

🔗Poynter / MediaWise

🔗MediaWise

About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started.

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Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele Musso
Edited by the Musso Media Team

Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0