{"id":5062,"date":"2026-06-17T10:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/?p=5062"},"modified":"2026-06-17T11:00:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:00:31","slug":"carleton-journalism-duo-awarded-michener-fellowship-for-ai-literacy-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/2026\/carleton-journalism-duo-awarded-michener-fellowship-for-ai-literacy-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Carleton journalism duo awarded Michener fellowship for AI literacy project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Carleton journalism duo awarded Michener fellowship for AI literacy project\n <\/h1>\n \n \n \n\n

By Allyson Yang<\/p>\n\n\n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Patterson and Kanina Holmes have won the Michener \u2013 L. Richard O\u2019Hagan Fellowship for Journalism Education for their project, \u201cAI Literacy for Canadian Journalism Education.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jessica
Jessica Patterson (left) and Kanina Holmes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The fellowship, awarded by the Michener Awards Foundation, recognizes initiatives that advance public service in Canadian journalism. For more than 50 years, the Michener Awards have honoured journalism that contributes to the public good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patterson,\u00a0an alumna\u00a0of Carleton University\u2019s School of Journalism and Communication, and Holmes, an associate professor at the same school, developed a project to test and create modules that will prepare students for the critical and ethical use of AI in newsrooms. The initiative focuses on strengthening the public\u2019s trust in journalism by ensuring that journalists are trained to use these tools responsibly.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re grateful for the Michener Foundation\u2019s support, which makes this work possible,\u201d said Patterson, who will receive a recognition of the fellowship with Holmes on June 18 at Rideau Hall in Ottawa.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patterson said the project grew out of interviews she and colleague Terra Tailleur conducted with editors-in-chief at 12 Canadian newsrooms last year. Those conversations suggested that many newsrooms still lacked clear frameworks or policies for using AI, leaving journalists cautious about how to adopt the technology responsibly and ethically.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLayered over all of it was this new reality: that AI was now part of the editorial workflow, and it wasn\u2019t going anywhere, but journalism education had not yet caught up,\u201d said Patterson, who studied with Holmes as a graduate student in journalism.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cNewsrooms were asking for graduates who could think critically, verify accurately and be able to use AI tools responsibly, but there was no shared, Canadian, ready-to-use curriculum to help educators prepare students for that reality. The fellowship project is my attempt to bridge that gap.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Patterson and Holmes plan to create a curriculum that any journalism program in Canada can use, providing instructors with practical modules and training so they don\u2019t need to build resources from scratch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project arrives at a moment when news organizations are still working out how to use AI responsibly, while balancing questions about accuracy, bias and transparency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt feels like we\u2019re living in the Wild West when it comes to AI,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cJournalism students are navigating a chaotic information ecosystem at a time when the value of what we bring to the public sphere is questioned.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holmes said the fellowship provides an opportunity to collaborate with students and instructors to identify gaps in AI education and explore its implications for both learning and professional practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA key question we need to constantly ask ourselves is: how do we know what we know?\u201d Holmes said. \u201cAI often obscures the provenance of information, making critical media literacy more vital than ever.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project received strong support from Carleton University\u2019s Teaching and Learning Services as well as the director of the journalism program, Allan Thompson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis project addresses head-on an urgent need identified across Canadian journalism programs,\u2019\u2019 Thompson said. \u201cAs educators, we recognize the gap between newsroom expectations for AI literacy and current pedagogical resources. We urgently need tested, ready-to-use curriculum modules that balance practical AI tool training with critical ethical frameworks.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patterson said her immediate focus is completing the project well, with the hope that it will create a foundation for broader adoption across Canadian journalism schools. She hopes to foster a community of practice around AI literacy in journalism education so the work can evolve alongside changing technology and newsroom expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Patterson and Kanina Holmes have won the Michener \u2013 L. Richard O\u2019Hagan Fellowship for Journalism Education for their project, \u201cAI Literacy for Canadian Journalism Education.\u201d  The fellowship, awarded by the Michener Awards Foundation, recognizes initiatives that advance public service in Canadian journalism. For more than 50 years, the Michener Awards have honoured journalism that contributes to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":5064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5062"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5073,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions\/5073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}