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Sounding the A.I. Alarm

More than 100 news executives will descend on Capitol Hill to warn lawmakers about the threats A.I. poses to the industry.

Author

Oliver Darcy
September 10, 2024

Capitol Hill. (Stock photo/Getty Images)

News media executives are descending on Washington, D.C., to warn lawmakers about the threats posed to the industry by artificial intelligence.

The News Media Alliance, which represents more than 2,200 news organizations from coast to coast, has arranged meetings on Wednesday with approximately 100 lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, as part of a “Support Journalism Fly-In.”

“This is a moment for us to really push for the value of our content,” Danielle Coffey, president and chief executive of the News Media Alliance, told me by phone Tuesday.

Joining Coffey on Capitol Hill will be an array of more than 100 news executives, including Business Insider Chief Executive Barbara Peng and Tampa Bay Times Chief Executive Conan Gallaty. The executives will sound the alarm about some of the harmful impacts A.I. could have on the industry.

“As A.I. continues to change how people find and consume information, particularly in the generative search experience, we must ensure that copyrights are protected and technology companies properly credit and compensate news organizations for our work,” Peng said in a statement. “The thousands of publications that are represented on Capitol Hill this week together implore Congress to support the journalism industry at this critical juncture.”

Press advocates over the last year have voiced strong concern that outlets have not been appropriately compensated by technology behemoths such as Google and OpenAI, which quietly ingested authoritative news content to train their A.I. models, but failed to pay publishers for it. OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, has since struck a number of deals with leading newsrooms to license their content. Google has not publicly announced any such deals.

Regardless, Coffey told me she does not believe the deals OpenAI has inked with newsrooms have been fair to the publishers. She said it is a positive sign that the company now realizes it must pay for the content news organization’s create, but that the deals it has struck do “not reflect fair market value.”

Coffey explained that she believes the legal system has not adequately created a framework to protect publishers, thus putting them at a disadvantage in the negotiating room — something she would like to talk to lawmakers about on Wednesday.

“The proliferation of generative A.I. technology, and A.I. developers’ scraping of news publisher content without authorization or payment to train their systems, has added to a marketplace imbalance that already existed,” Coffey said. “We seek to educate lawmakers on these the risks that lie ahead absent legislation.”

Primetime in Philly

The ABC News debate stage. (Courtesy of ABC News)

Status Alert | Debate Day Drama: This one is odd. After airing video Monday on “World News Tonight” showing off the debate stage, ABC News brass directed the newsroom’s digital leaders on Tuesday to scrub platforms of the footage. “Please takedown all social media and VOD clips containing debate footage,” an internal email, which I obtained, told staffers on certain teams. The email said that the network’s standards & practices division had made the call to “cease distribution” of the video, which had even been included in a press release ABC News sent out to reporters Monday night (the link is now dead). It’s unclear precisely what drama transpired behind the scenes that led to the removal directive. Perhaps the video captured something ABC News brass didn’t intend to share? Spokespeople for ABC News, as is almost always the case, did not respond to requests for comment.

DirecTV Says No to Disney: Amid the stalled carriage negotiations between Disney and DirecTV, the Mouse House offered to restore access to ABC so that the satellite carrier’s subscribers could watch the debate on the network hosting it. But DirecTV rejected the offer. “Unfortunately, returning only Disney’s ABC stations from the entire portfolio of channels for a limited 3-hour window will cause customer confusion among those who would briefly see the debate only to lose the channel again shortly after,” the company said. Disney, naturally, fired back, portraying DirecTV as the villain. Deadline’s Dominic Patten and Ted Johnson have more.

CITY OF SPARRING LOVE

  • Michael Grynbaum wondered how many people will tune in for the debate, noting the record for a debate is the 84 million who tuned in to watch Donald Trump take on Hillary Clinton in 2016. [NYT]

  • One note: As the linear television business decays, it is harder and harder to measure how many people are actually watching a live event such as a debate. Unlike the Super Bowl, people will be able to watch the debate across a variety of internet-based streams. Nielsen ratings don't account for that.

  • Everyone knows David Muir. So Jeremy Barr looked at co-moderator Linsey Davis, who he noted " has risen through the network’s ranks over the past 17 years and now gets the biggest test — and opportunity — of her career." [WaPo]

  • "Unlike at the CNN debate, a pool of reporters who cover the candidates for major news organizations will be present in the debate studio, able to hear and report on what both sides are saying," Hadas Gold reported. [CNN]

  • The Kamala Harris campaign made clear it is trying to get under Trump's skin by inviting the short-lived former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci to the debate as surrogates. [The Hill]

  • Trump’s constant attacks on ABC News in the lead up to the debate “illustrate his overall approach to debates, which partially center on raising doubts about the fairness of the moderators," Alex Isenstadt and Meredith McGraw reported. [POLITICO]

  • Trump complained that Fox News had the nerve to interview Harris' spokesperson ahead of the debate: "RIDICULOUS!!!" [Mediaite]

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