UIC journalism students prepare for AI-integrated future of news

UIC communications senior Max Ayoub leans into every bit of his journalism training while working remotely as a freelance night reporter for the Daily Heraldof Arlington Heights.

He asks questions, interviews sources, chases leads and writes stories on nightly deadlines. Writing longer stories was a skill he picked up in senior lecturer Mike Reilley's AI in Journalism course, which allowed students to research topics using Perplexity, write stories and discuss the use of AI in journalism along with the legal and ethical issues surrounding that use.

"I got a lot out of learning about the AI tools, and the biggest value for me was getting the opportunity to write more," Ayoub said. "Since last semester, the AI tool I've used is Perplexity because it can help you with research, but it's also better at organizing sources, which I found to be really helpful."

AI has been a part of writing and online research for several years; we find it Google searches, shopping recommendations, Grammarly and social media feeds. But the large language models introduced in late 2022 have remade the conventions of writing, and journalism is no exception. As future journalists learn the field in college, news organizations everywhere are grappling with how to exploit AI without losing their credibility.

In addition to teaching the course at UIC, Reilley travels around the country to teach professional journalists how to use AI. He stresses the use of AI as a "sidekick" not a replacement for writing.

"Think of AI as your sidekick like what Elwood Blues is to Joliet Jake in the 'Blues Brothers:' It can do certain things for you to help you," Reilley said. "Maybe it's writing a headline. Maybe it's creating a summary off of your interview notes. You don't have to use the content that it gives back to you, but you can take it and edit it.

"My No. 1 rule is: Don't use it to write your stories for you."

Guardrails first: Ethics in the age of AI

A committee in the communications department spent more than a year establishing standards for using and teaching AI in the classroom.

In his AI classes, which have filled quickly, Reilley first teaches how the technology works before giving students the opportunity to try what they've learned.

"I front-load it with a lot of theory, best practices, copyright law, ethical uses of AI and unethical uses of it, deepfakes and how to spot deepfakes," Reilley said. "I teach them everything from basic prompt writing to how to build multimedia, create data visualizations with it, podcasts and all the cool things. But I have them write their own stories."

UIC's AI guidelines acknowledge positive applications for AI while stressing the importance of students using their own knowledge, experiences and analysis in classwork.

Audy Nicko, who took the AI in Journalism last fall just before she graduated, said she's seen the rise of large language model AI use at universities throughout her college career.

Nicko, an international student from Indonesia, said using AI tools to have her papers read back to her helped her become a better writer. She wrote about her experience on the publishing platform Medium.

"Sometimes, I just want to check if I need to edit this a little bit," Nicko said. "But even when I use AI, I'm not going to turn anything in without checking it first. The AI might make a suggestion, and I'll think, 'This is an OK modification,' but I also want to add my touch."

Reilley said he gives his students a safe place to learn about AI while setting standards about how to use it ethically.

"To stick your head in the sand and say, 'AI is banned' is not preparing students for the future of their industry," Reilley said.

In Reilley's class, students are asked to use the AI programs they've learned about to create images, charts, graphics and videos to augment their journalism projects. Even with this knowledge, Ayoub avoids AI use in many cases.

"I'm against using generative images," Ayoub said. "We learned how to make them and use them, but there's no two ways around it being fake. I think having that in an article can sometimes detract from the truth, even if you disclose it."

Authenticity over automation

Reilley knows AI will almost certainly be part of his students' careers after they graduate. That's why teaching the fundamentals of AI is so important to creating a well-rounded, well-prepared student who can use the tools.

"If you bring people along slowly, give them the foundational skills up front, and then start to have them experiment with it on smaller assignments, build to the bigger projects, like the midterm paper or the final project - we've seen some good results," Reilley said.

Reilley educates his students and professional journalists to use AI for brainstorming, generating questions, finding gaps in stories, creating text-to-speech for editing, imaging and mapping, and turning copy into social media videos. He also explains the pros and cons of various platforms and how to turn on privacy settings when loading new stories to avoid copyright concerns.

"It's good at writing social media posts, suggesting headlines and keywords for search engine optimization and generative engine optimization, as well," Reilley said. "I teach students to use it to brainstorm ideas. They generate ideas for their midterm papers, and they're using it to develop interview questions."

Though he teaches only one AI in Journalism course each semester, Reilley peppers AI use into some of his other courses. His Sports Journalism students, for example, use NotebookLM to create podcasts based on their class assignments.

"Most of the Sports Journalism class is boots-on-the-ground reporting where their phone is a multimedia tool," Reilley said. "But you sprinkle in a few AI tools, so they understand if they're unable to perform a task with one tool, there are other options for them."

With responsibility comes recognition

Reilley's classes have produced more than 40 projects using AI platforms. The outcome? The Red Line Project he created to share students' assignments was honored with a 2025 Associated College Press Pacemaker Award for Innovation.

The Associated College Press said, "The Innovation Pacemaker is designed to encourage out-of-the-box thinking and reward student media for the courage to take chances to improve service to their customers, readers and communities."

For her writing, Nicko uses AI as a guide in her research. She wrote a piece for Medium about pasta and used AI to research the origins of pasta making.

"I don't want AI to take over my creativity or my critical thinking," she said. "So, I think that's how I learned to be responsible. AI is like your best friend that's there for you to guide you through the research, but they will not help you to the finish line."

Reilley encourages his students to keep learning through experimentation. As the technology changes, they can adapt and improve their use of it.

"I think you have to be really careful with this technology," Reilley said. "It's unfinished. It's learning every day and improving, but it's not the refined technology that we're used to seeing. AI was imperfect from Day One, and people aren't used to seeing that.

"So, we spent a lot of time looking at step-by-step prompt writing in the process of getting AI to work for us rather than against us."