People
Updated 05/18/26Founder
Leadership team member
Fellow
Operations Director
Funding Details
Updated 05/18/26- Annual Budget
- $4,000,000
- Current Runway
- -
- Funding Goal
- $6,400,000
- Funding Raised to Date
- $20,000,000
Org Details
Updated 05/18/26The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism is an independent 501(c)(3) public charity founded in 2022 by Cillian Crosson after he participated in Charity Entrepreneurship, a competitive nonprofit incubator. Named after the pioneering investigative journalist Ida Tarbell, the organization was created to address what it sees as a critical gap: journalism as a career path is neglected by those interested in reducing risks from advanced AI. The Center operates four main programs. The Tarbell Fellowship is a 12-month program that provides early-career and senior journalists with AI training, stipends ($60,000-$80,000 for early-career fellows, $90,000-$110,000 for senior fellows), and nine-month placements at major newsrooms including Bloomberg, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, TIME, The Verge, NBC News, and the Los Angeles Times. Fellows participate in a 10-week AI Journalism Fundamentals study group and attend a weeklong journalism summit in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since launch, the program has supported over 50 journalists. Tarbell Grants awards $1,000-$20,000 to support original reporting on AI published in established outlets, whether from freelancers or staff reporters. The grants program is scaling from $400,000 to $800,000 in annual funding distributed, with plans for institutional grantmaking. Transformer is a publication founded within Tarbell, edited by Shakeel Hashim (formerly of The Economist). It covers the power and politics of transformative AI and has grown to over 10,000 subscribers, including senior officials in the US and UK governments, leaders at major AI companies, and influential voices across think tanks and media. Its work has been cited by The New York Times, The Guardian, Politico, Axios, The Verge, Vox, and TechCrunch. The Residencies program provides senior writers with the time and resources to produce in-depth AI reporting. The organization is remote-first with a London office in Shoreditch and planned expansion to San Francisco. It had 9 full-time staff as of mid-2025, with plans to grow to 15+ by end of 2026. Tarbell is funded by Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy), the Survival and Flourishing Fund, the Future of Life Institute, and the EA Infrastructure Fund, among others. The organization emphasizes editorial independence, stating that donors do not exert any editorial control over fellows or grantees, and it does not accept anonymous donations greater than $10,000.
Theory of Change
Updated 05/18/26Tarbell's theory of change rests on the premise that journalism is a neglected career path among those concerned about risks from advanced AI, yet quality AI journalism is critical for informed public discourse and effective governance. By training and funding journalists who cover AI at major newsrooms, Tarbell aims to demystify complex AI technologies for the public, hold AI companies and developers accountable, and inform policymakers who shape AI governance. The organization believes that a larger, better-informed corps of AI journalists will lead to more accurate public understanding of AI capabilities and risks, better-informed policy decisions, and greater accountability for powerful AI developers -- all of which contribute to safer AI development trajectories.
Grants Received
Updated 05/18/26Projects
Updated 05/18/26
The Journalists-in-residence programme provides senior writers with funding to pursue longer investigations, explore entrepreneurial projects and deepen their understanding of artificial intelligence.
A one-year journalism fellowship that trains and places reporters at major newsrooms to cover artificial intelligence, providing stipends, a 10-week AI fundamentals course, and nine-month embedded placements at outlets like Bloomberg, TIME, The Guardian, and NBC News.
Tarbell Grants provides funding for original reporting on artificial intelligence and its impacts, helping journalists produce explanatory coverage that unpacks complex AI topics, possible harms from frontier models, leading AI companies and lobbying around AI policy.
Discussion
Key risk: The core theory of change is indirect and fragile: in a crowded media environment, Tarbell’s fellows and grantees may face newsroom incentives that pull toward capabilities hype or superficial coverage, yielding low counterfactual impact on AI governance and safety that is hard to measure.
Case for funding: Tarbell uniquely professionalizes a safety-aware AI journalism pipeline—via well-funded fellowships, senior residencies, grants, and placements at top newsrooms—and has early traction (50+ fellows; Transformer cited and read by US/UK officials), making additional funding a high-leverage way to get accurate, accountability-focused AI reporting in front of policymakers.