I wanted to give you a heads-up about Tuesday's Golden Beer Talk. The topic is one of interest to many: Artificial Intelligence. We have an impressive pair of speakers this month. Tim Regan Porter is the CEO of the Colorado Press Association, and Dan Grech is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
As always, the event will be held at the Buffalo Rose Events Center, the doors will open at 6PM, and the talk will start at 6:35PM.
Artificial Intelligence in Journalism
Featured Brewery: 6 and 40 Brewery
Introduction by: Barb Warden – GoldenToday.com
Tim Regan-Porter and Dan Grech will explore the evolving role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in journalism, addressing its potential to transform—for good and for ill—news. They will discuss how AI can enhance reporting, streamline workflows, and engage audiences in new ways, while also considering the ethical challenges, business model disruptions, and implications of relying on AI in journalism. This talk will offer insights into both the opportunities and pitfalls of AI in the media industry, providing practical examples of AI in journalism and exploring its potential evolution.
Speaker Bio:
Tim Regan-Porter
CEO – Colorado Press Association
Tim Regan-Porter is CEO of the Colorado Press Association & host of the Local News Matters podcast.
Previously, Regan-Porter was South Region editor for McClatchy, leading newsrooms in Macon, Columbus (Ga.) and Biloxi where he drove experimentation and developed new digital brands. He joined McClatchy after his John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University where he studied systems and strategies for innovation in the Graduate School of Business, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) and Computer Science Department.
Prior to his fellowship, Regan-Porter was founding executive director of the Center for Collaborative Journalism, which trains students by adapting the “teaching hospital” model of education. The New York Times called this initiative “one of the nation’s boldest journalism experiments,” and Pew Research Center said, “in many ways, the heart of journalism innovation is emerging from Mercer University.” In 2016, he was a Scripps Entrepreneurial Journalism Fellow at Arizona State University, and in 2014, he was one of 70 technologists from 37 countries selected to participate in Al Jazeera’s inaugural Media in Context Hackathon in Qatar.
As president and co-founder of Paste Media Group, he and his partners bootstrapped Paste magazine to become the 3rd-largest music title in the country. Recognized as a “C-Level Visionary” in the Folio 40, Regan-Porter led the magazine’s digital transition which encompassed multiple national awards including being a three-time finalist for General Excellence at the National Magazine Awards. Industry magazine Min placed Paste in the top five among all magazines in social media activation, and a Cornell University study cited Paste’s Twitter presence as one of the 100 most influential, ahead of The Washington Post, MSNBC, ABC News and Oprah.
Prior to Paste, Regan-Porter spent 10 years in web development at several firms, including IBM’s e-business National Practice where he managed the engineering teams on some of IBM’s largest projects. He majored in economics and math, with a history minor, at Olivet Nazarene University and has done graduate work in computer science, business, economics and math at Stanford University, Georgia State University, University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana) and University of Georgia.
Speaker Bio:
Dan Grech,Founder & CEO – Bizhack Academy
Dan Grech is the founder and CEO of BizHack Academy, whose mission is to give 10,000 underserved small businesses a simpler way to grow. Dan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former NPR and PBS journalist turned entrepreneur and educator.
He is the grandson of a Philadelphia public school science teacher and of a professional soccer coach in La Liga in Spain, and he carries forward a family legacy of teaching, coaching and entrepreneurship.
Dan trains business owners in the Lead Building System™, a proven process for online lead generation, and the Thought Leadership Pyramid™, a systematic approach to content marketing. Past career highlights include as the head of growth at two software startups and as senior director of digital marketing the nation’s largest Hispanic-owned energy company. He helped take OfferCraft, a gamification SaaS company in the hospitality industry, from pre-revenue to a $2.5M run rate in just two years, culminating in an acquisition.
During his 15-year career as a journalist, he was a correspondent for NPR’s Marketplace and PBS’s Nightly Business Report; the News Director at Miami’s NPR station; and a reporter at The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald. He co-hosted one of the nation’s first podcasts, Under the Sun. Dan is an active member of the South Florida startup ecosystem.
He started a scholarship program at BizHack for minority- and women-owned businesses that has given out more than $250,000 in training to 125+ entrepreneurs. And he’s mentored entrepreneurs at Babson College’s WIN Lab, StartUP FIU, The Idea Center at Miami Dade College, and the Innovation Hub at Broward College. Dan has taught at top universities including Princeton, Columbia and University of Miami. He’s a graduate of Princeton University; has an MFA in nonfiction storytelling and a Masters in Spanish-language journalism; and was a Fulbright scholar in Argentina. He completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business program in 2019 (Miami Cohort 18). Dan is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Spain. He lives in Miami with his wife Gretchen Beesing, CEO of the nonprofit Catalyst Miami, and he has two children, Iris and Henry. Fun fact about Dan: he’s performed for more than a decade in the Miami improv comedy troupe Chasing Tales.
How This Works
The Buffalo Rose will open at 6:00 p.m. Food and drink service will begin at 6:00 p.m. and the program will begin around 6:30 p.m. Following the presentation, we’ll take a brief intermission for Q + A. We’ll wrap up around 7:45 p.m., but people interested in staying a bit longer to socialize will be able to do so. There is no cover charge and no purchase is necessary.
