Co-founder
Verso
San Francisco, California, United States
Patrick Swanson is an Austrian-American digital journalist and technologist with over a decade of experience in news leadership. As co-founder of Verso, a San Francisco-based consulting lab, he now helps newsrooms, business leaders, and non-profits navigate the AI age. Verso offers custom workshops, tools, and AI strategies for media organizations.
Previously, Patrick was a 2024 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, where he studied the impact of AI on media and democracy. At Stanford, he collaborated with computer scientists to create AI tools for journalists and developed training and implementation strategies for newsrooms. His work encompassed AI policy, ethics, coding, and business development - as well as exploring improvisational theater techniques for journalists.
From 2013 to 2023, Patrick founded and led the social media team at Austria's largest newsroom, managing news coverage for 2.4 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. He pioneered strategies against misinformation and hate speech, and began exploring AI tools for newsrooms as early as 2017. His work in digital journalism earned him Austria's prestigious Walther Rode Prize in 2019.
Yes, And: How Improv Skills Can Help Your Newsroom Earn Trust
Friday, September 20, 2024
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM EDT