Lee Enterprises, the owner of The Daily News, is refusing to guarantee its reporters protections against the misuse of artificial intelligence tools or commit to not publishing deepfakes, according to a news release from the Longview NewsGuild.
The Longview NewsGuild has been in collective bargaining with the company since July.
“When the NewsGuild proposed contract language that would ban deepfakes and ensure reporting work continues to be done by human reporters, Lee Enterprises refused, saying that it needed to maintain flexibility to change its rules on AI in the future,” the news release stated. “The company wants reporters to rely solely on its internal AI policy to protect them against the same misuses of generative AI seen in companies like McClatchy and Gannett, despite Lee representatives stating the policy is expected to change.”
According to the news release, Lee Enterprises already uses generative AI to reword articles, and encourages employees to use ChatGPT to develop ideas, write headlines and summarize information.
Recently issued performance goals required reporters at The Daily News to use company-approved AI tools, the news release stated.
“We at the NewsGuild believe AI is not a replacement for the work of real journalists in the communities they serve,” the news release stated. “The Longview NewsGuild is asking Lee Enterprises to give reporters control over how or if generative AI tools are used in the newsroom, and to draw a hard line against deepfakes, because readers deserve news they can trust.”
The Longview NewsGuild, established in 2021, represents the reporters at The Daily News in Longview and is a unit of the Pacific Northwest NewsGuild.
The Pacific Northwest NewsGuild, TNG-CWA Local #37082, represents more than 350 workers in Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Idaho. For almost 90 years, its journalists and media workers have been fighting for fair wages and benefits, sustainable jobs and the resources they need to help tell the stories of our communities, the news release stated.
