By Fatima Salinas and Bri Brands
The Mobile Me & You Conference brought the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences students and faculty together at the University of Iowa (UI) to explore where journalism is heading next.
Hosted by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in collaboration with the University of Nebraska, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Northwestern University, the event showed new approaches to digital storytelling and mobile communication.
The conference took place at the UI following its recent recognition by U.S. News and World Report as a top writing university.
Speakers discussed how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), large language models, and virtual and augmented reality are transforming the future of journalism. See a breakdown of key themes and sessions below.
What students need to know about the future of storytelling
Marc Lavallee, founder and chief executive officer of Lyra TK, a product development and consulting practice, kicked off the conference with a question-and-answer keynote over pizza for students to inquire about the future of AI in journalism.
“We’re getting into a moment with AI now, where jobs in journalism, media, or communications are probably going to look different from how they have looked for the last 10 or 15 years," Lavallee said.
He noted that as new tools become easier to use, they can expand creativity in storytelling without replacing the core skills of journalism. “Understanding what it means to interrogate a source or ask solid follow up questions is an incredibly important skill, and there’s no shelf life on these underlying skills.”
Rather than cutting jobs, he said, AI will remove repetitive tasks and make reporting more efficient. “The skills of journalism are at an increasing value in a world that is powered by AI,” he said.
Lavallee also sat on a panel to discuss the future of storytelling, with a focus on sharing how storytelling can and should change over the next five years. “Only 28 percent of Americans have a reasonably high trust in news,” Lavallee said. “The only number that’s going up is people who don’t trust the news at all.”
While the use of AI in journalism causes mixed feelings, Lavallee said it's important to learn how to use it. In his view, journalists are behind. “Can we use AI to catch up with where our audiences are, and do so in a way that goes with the brain of the consumer behavior rather than trying to change how people work?”
For the most part, people get their news from social media platforms, Lavallee said. Until recently, news platforms were only accessed when seeking specific information. Now, AI platforms have replaced those news platforms, with the information showing within seconds of hitting ‘search.’
“The real question and challenge for us when it comes to information seeking is, ‘How do we news providers find a way to be present in these experiences that are drawing people’s interest further and further from the material we produce?’” Lavallee said.
What I’ve learned from 60,000+ headlines
Ryan Restivo, creator of the headline analysis tool YESEO, and Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow, talked with students about what he has learned from looking at tens of thousands of headlines written in newsrooms across the country.
His work focuses on helping journalists understand how headlines shape the way stories get discovered online and how readers connect with them. Restivo explained that a lot of headlines today end up sounding like AI wrote them, which can make stories feel less genuine or trustworthy.
“A headline is the first impression,” Restivo said. “If it sounds like a robot wrote it, readers will assume the rest of the story feels that way too.”
Restivo walked students through examples of headlines that felt too formulaic and showed how small changes, like using more specific language or choosing a clearer verb, can make a big difference. He encouraged students to think about what people are actually searching for and to write headlines that feel honest and natural.
“Our job is not to trick the algorithm,” he said. “It is to help people find the information they are already looking for.”
Restivo encouraged students to try different headline versions, pay attention to what works in their own projects, and stay open to experimenting. He said that as AI becomes more common, being intentional and human in your writing will matter more than ever.
Stepping Into the News: AR/VR storytelling in journalism today and tomorrow
Chris Ball, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, spoke with students about how virtual and augmented reality is also transforming the future of storytelling.
His work examines how people shape and are shaped by emerging media, including how immersive tools can shift the way audiences connect with real-world issues. In one study on augmented experiences, participants swam alongside a virtual humpback whale, which strengthened their connection to nature.
“Instead of just having a public service announcement, what if we could have a public service experience?” Ball asked.
He reminded students that even as technology evolves, the fundamentals of reporting remain essential. “The core journalism skills don’t go away,” he said. “We’re just adding new ways to use them.”
Ball highlighted projects like The Wall by USA Today, which uses immersive storytelling to make distant experiences feel more personal and emphasized that students do not need expensive gear to begin experimenting.
Ball ended by encouraging students to stay curious as new tools develop, noting that experimentation and critical thinking will shape what comes next in journalism.