Data and Digital Journalism Professor
University of Illinois Chicago
Mike Reilley is a senior lecturer at the University of Illinois-Chicago and founder of JournalistsToolbox.ai, a free website featuring AI tools and training videos. He’s the author of two books: “Data + Journalism” (Routledge, 2023) and “The Journalist’s Toolbox: A Guide to Digital Reporting and AI” (Routledge 2024).
Mike has spent the past decade teaching Google News Initiative and other digital and AI-driven tools to more than 22,000 journalists and educators in more than 600 trainings in 46 states. He’s currently the lead trainer for both the RTDNA/GNI Election Fact-Checking Program and the ONA/Microsoft AI in Journalism training program.
He is also co-founder of and trainer with Penny Press Digital LLC, a consulting and training company that has several clients, including
Gannett. When he’s not doing trainings, he teaches data and multimedia journalism at UIC, where he is a full-time faculty member.
Mike teaches data, digital and AI journalism courses at UIC, where he has been working for the past decade. His students produce news stories on urban neighborhood issues to RedLineProject.news. He served for 13 years as a faculty member at Northwestern, Arizona State University and DePaul University, teaching digital journalism to hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students.
A former reporter at the LA Times and web editor at the Chicago Tribune, he was an early adopter of the web and was one of the 11 founding editors of ChicagoTribune.com in 1996.
He holds journalism degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (undergrad) and Northwestern University (masters). Sites: MikeReilley.com | JournalistsToolbox.ai | Twitter: @itsmikereilley @journtoolbox | Email: mikereilley1@gmail.com
Session materials folder: https://bit.ly/ona26
More AI Tools That Won't Get You Fired
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM CT