Google Supports MTC @ Medill’s Next Phase of Growth

EVANSTON, IL (July 14, 2026) — The Media Transformation Challenge @ Northwestern Medill is celebrating its 20th year with renewed support from Google, expanding MTC’s ability to help journalism leaders turn urgent industry challenges into measurable results and longer term resilience.

This support has helped fund three MTC Fellows in the 2026 cohort, broadening access for leaders working on performance challenges tied to publisher growth, responsible AI, and long-term journalism sustainability.

The investment will also support a new Deep Strategy cohort for 12 MTC alumni. Led by MTC founder Doug Smith and Executive Director Charlie Baum, the cohort is designed for alumni facing tough, complex strategic challenges important to the field.  The program will focus on strategic clarity and choice-making, wedded to early momentum to move up the MTC S-curve.

As MTC celebrates its 20th anniversary, this will underwrite a Washington, D.C. reunion and celebration for alumni. The gathering will focus on reconnection, case studies, and tool-driven planning against the field’s most urgent challenges, while also highlighting alumni outcomes and lessons from two decades of performance-driven change.

Google’s support will further extend MTC’s reach through conference participation, workshops, and convenings at major journalism gatherings; expanded communications through newsletters, LinkedIn, and MTC Headlines; continued website development; and support for MTC’s transition to its own independent 501(c)(3).

Since 2007, MTC has helped more than 450 senior media executives use performance-driven tools, coaching, and peer accountability to deliver meaningful revenue, audience, product, organizational, and civic impact.

This next phase strengthens MTC’s ability to serve not only each annual Fellowship cohort, but also its extensive alumni network and the broader journalism ecosystem.

“News organizations are under extraordinary pressure to grow audiences, earn trust, build sustainable businesses, and adapt responsibly to AI,” said Charlie Baum, Executive Director of MTC @ Medill. “GNI’s support allows us to meet that moment by helping leaders move beyond ideas and into real outcomes, while also more explicitly serving the extraordinary alumni network MTC has built over the last two decades.”

“We’re proud to support MTC @ Medill’s next phase of growth as they help journalism leaders navigate a rapidly evolving media landscape,” Casey Pallenik, News Industry Relations Lead at Google, said. “By investing in new Fellows and strategic alumni initiatives, we aim to provide the tools and coaching necessary to drive sustainable publisher growth and responsible AI adoption.”