Not a course. Not a certificate program. A reference library built by a working journalist — for working journalists — that you can dip into between shows, on your lunch break, or at 2am when you're trying to fix a problem.
Open Training HubEvery other tool in this suite makes you faster. This one makes you sound — in the judgment sense of the word. The Training Hub is where thirty years of newsroom craft and my work teaching AI literacy to journalists across the country live inside SmartRundown. It's not a course. Nobody in this business has a free Tuesday, and I wouldn't ask for one. It's a reference library built for the ten minutes you actually have — between shows, on the desk, over a sad desk lunch. A quick video on the setup line you keep botching. A guide on when to send the alert and when to hold it. The responsible AI section, for when your news director asks a question you want to answer well. Everything stands alone. Come in through whatever door today's problem opens.
The Hub covers three kinds of ground, because that's what responsible adoption actually requires.
The tools themselves. Practical video guides for every tool in the suite — what it does, how to get the most out of it, and the mistakes I've watched people make so you don't have to. Not manuals. Coaching. The difference between a tool guide written by a tech company and one written by someone who's read the output on air at six o'clock.
The craft underneath. Here's my worry about AI in newsrooms, stated plainly: tools that do the mechanical work can quietly excuse us from learning why the work is done. So the Hub teaches the craft the tools automate — why broadcast copy is written for the ear, what makes a tease honest, how a VOSOT is built, what a web story needs that a script doesn't. Because the journalist who understands the why edits AI output into something great. The one who never learned it approves stiffer copy faster. The Hub is an argument for the second one not happening on your watch.
Responsible AI, without the panic or the hype. The section I built for the conversation every newsroom is having badly. What these tools actually do and don't do. The verification standard — read it before you air it — in practical, workflow-level detail. How to talk to your news director about adoption, and what a sane station policy looks like. The disclosure question. The data question. All of it in plain English, from someone who teaches this to working journalists and newsroom managers, not to conference audiences.
The Hub lives as on-demand video lessons organized by category — Tool Guides, Broadcast Craft, and Responsible AI — with a search bar so you can find what you need without clicking through everything. Downloadable PDF resources sit alongside the videos for the lessons where a reference sheet is more useful than a replay. Content is added as the tools evolve, as the craft questions come up in my workshops, and as the AI landscape shifts in ways that actually matter to working journalists. No fixed schedule — updated when it needs to be, which in this field is often.
Who's it for? The new producer who learned VOSOTs by osmosis and wants the real foundation. The veteran who's skeptical of AI and wants straight answers before touching it — honestly, some of my favorite people to teach. The EP or news director evaluating whether this suite belongs in their shop, who wants to see the standards behind the software. And the MMJ at 11 p.m. who just needs to know what the [NEEDS SOURCE] flag wants from them. Ten minutes at a time, on your schedule, no syllabus required.
Excerpt — "The Setup Line: The Most Commonly Botched Sentence in Broadcast News"
The SOT setup has one job: hand the viewer to the speaker. And the most common way to blow it is generosity — telling the viewer what the speaker is about to say, and then letting them say it. "THE CHIEF SAYS THE PROGRAM IS ABOUT MEETING RESIDENTS AT THEIR DOORS" ...followed by the chief saying the program is about meeting residents at their doors. You've just aired the same sentence twice and burned four seconds doing it.
The fix is to set up the speaker and the stakes — not the statement. Tell me who's talking and why I should care, then get out of the way: "FIRE CHIEF DANIEL REYES SAYS TOO MANY OF THE HOMES HIS CREWS RESPOND TO... HAVE NO ALARMS AT ALL." Now the bite lands as an answer, not an echo.
Quick test for any setup you've written: if you can put a colon at the end of your setup and the bite reads like the completion of your sentence — rewrite the setup. The bite should add, never repeat.
Is this a course I have to work through in order?
No, and that's deliberate. Courses assume you have time; the Hub assumes you don't. Everything stands alone — come in through whatever door today's problem opens, get the answer, leave. The producer who only ever watches the tease guides is using it exactly right. That said, if you want a front-to-back starting point — new hires, students, career-switchers — start with the Broadcast Craft section. It builds the foundation the tool guides assume you have, and it reads fast.
How is this different from the AI training you do for newsrooms in person?
Same philosophy, different altitude. The Hub is the reference layer — the answers on demand, tool-specific, always there at 11 p.m. The live training I do through my workshops and seminars is the transformation layer: working with your actual staff, your actual scripts, your market's actual challenges, and the Q&A where the real questions come out. Plenty of newsrooms use both — the Hub for daily reinforcement, the live work for the culture shift. If your station's having that conversation, the contact page is the right next step.
Will the Hub keep up as AI changes? This stuff moves fast.
It has to — that's the deal. The craft content barely ages; how to write an honest tease was true in 1996 and will be true in 2036. But the AI guidance is a living section, updated as the tools evolve, as newsroom policies mature, and honestly, as the questions in my workshops change — because working journalists are the best early-warning system for what needs teaching next. When something big shifts in this space, the Hub gets updated before the next person walks into a newsroom asking the wrong question.