DDIA seeks 20 journalists, content creators, media professionals, or civil society leaders for an 8-week, AI-focused, capacity-building program.
Apply by March 1, 2026 (11:59 p.m. ET)
Today DDIA launches its call for applications for The Latinos, Media, and Democracy Program (LMDP) 2026 - The AI Edition, an 8-week, no-cost, series of workshops designed to support Latino front-line communicators and trusted messengers with the tools and knowledge they need to strengthen their coverage, understanding of, and overall engagement with Latino communities in the United States.
The program is open to Latino journalists, content creators, media professionals, and civil society leaders with between one and five years of experience. Twenty participants will be selected for this cohort.
LMDP 2026 will teach participants to harness AI for prompt engineering, content analysis, and search and verification, and will cover the ethical framework for AI use in reporting, investigations, and content creation, focusing on bias mitigation and data privacy. The program will be conducted in collaboration with the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) and will feature other guest speakers.
This year’s program will also cover the foundations of information ecosystem trends impacting U.S. Latinos, including media consumption trends, voting patterns, and Latino engagement with misinformation and other online harms. The twenty trusted messengers selected for this program will also be given the opportunity to learn from and engage with experts from a variety of disciplines in and outside of Washington, D.C.
Participants will walk away from the program with:
1) access to training and tools for harnessing AI for better investigations, content production, and engagement with Latinos;
2) a greater understanding of AI adoption and perceptions of AI among Latinos, and
3) the skills to help fortify trust between Latino audiences and democracy.
Review the call for applications here.
Eligibility Criteria:
Participants must fit into at least one of the categories described below:
Be a U.S.-based journalist covering politics or elections in the United States
Be a Latin America-based journalist covering the 2026 midterm elections in the United States
Be a U.S.-based journalist covering entertainment, tech, or social media
Be an influencer (with over 5,000 followers) or media producer based in the United States producing content in English and/or Spanish for YouTube or TikTok channels that are geared, at least in part, to Latinos
Be a U.S. civil society leader covering or focusing on specific states or cities
Be a U.S. civil society leader working on organizing and engaging Latino communities around elections
Participants should have between 1 and 5 years of experience, be fluent in English (and preferably also in Spanish or Portuguese), and be working with/for the Latino community in 2026.
Skills, attributes, and experiences that may be particularly relevant to this program include:
Interest in the intersections of AI, elections, media, and community engagement
Interest in investigating and/or researching how online harms circulate among Latinos and how (if) it impacts on their behavior
Interest in learning new AI tools and techniques to improve reporting/content production
Interest in participating in an emerging cohort of Latino-centered trusted messengers
Knowledge, networks, or experience related to issues affecting Latinos across the United States.
Program Expectations and Commitment:
Be ready to dedicate at least three hours of time to the program per week between April and July 2026, being present in all sessions scheduled (in advance) by DDIA.
Be open and able to travel to Washington, DC, for three days over the last week of April for program kick-off activities.
Commit to producing and publishing one original project or piece of content inspired by at least one of the lessons learned during the program, and to measuring the output’s impact.
Be willing to publish, distribute, or implement original content created based on the program’s learnings through an account, outlet, platform, or organization.
Commit to filling out pre- and post-session surveys as part of DDIA’s measurement and evaluation requirements.
More About the Program:
LMDP 2026 workshop modules include:
Foundations - Latinos, The Information Landscape, and AI
The Investigator's Toolkit
Application and Ethics of AI
LMDP 2026 will kick off with an in-person workshop in Washington, D.C., on April 28 and 29. Participants will be presented with information trends, tactics, and narratives affecting Latino communities online, and be taught the basics of social listening and security online. Participants will also receive an introduction to AI in the media context, with a focus on core capabilities, limitations, and the primary risks of AI to the information environment and take part in conversations with tech and democracy stakeholders.
Subsequent sessions, taking place weekly for two hours online between May and July 2026, will cover U.S. Latino media consumption trends, voting trends, use cases, core capabilities, and limitations of AI tools, including an overview of GPTs, AI agents, AI prompt engineering, and using structured prompts for summarization, topic modeling, and narrative pattern detection, as well as traditional OSINT best practices integrating AI-powered research tools.
At the end of the 8-week period, participants will be asked to produce a project or piece of content using tools, techniques or strategies learned during the program.
More details about the program here.
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