It Took Six Months and Dozens of Misreported Facts by Micah Yip In June, the Idaho Statesman reported Boise’s Clairvoyant Brewing Company was closing. It wasn’t. Co-owner Mike Edmondson was confused. While Clairvoyant announced in January it planned to close, the brewery struck a deal with its building owner weeks later and announced in February it would stay open. The Statesman accurately reported both developments at the time.  “To be frank, we didn’t know what was going on,” Edmondson said. That article published in June wasn’t written by a reporter. It was a small part of a listicle compiled by AI, and it hurt Edmondson’s business. Sales have been down 20 to 50 percent depending on the month, he said. People still call at least once a week asking if the brewery is still open.  It’s not a one-off. McClatchy, the newspaper conglomerate that owns the Statesman and about 30 major newspapers across 14 states (like the Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee, and the Charlotte Observer), has been pushing AI onto its papers for years with few guardrails.  Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild (PNW Newspaper Guild) journalists at McClatchy papers in Idaho and Washington say the Clairvoyant Brewing story demonstrated why they are concerned.  “Our biggest concern is that McClatchy won’t, at the bargaining table, commit to ethical standards,” says Statesman opinion writer Bryan Clark, who’s also the vice president of the local PNW Newspaper Guild and secretary of the Idaho News Guild. “They have internal policies and have some good things in them, but they want to reserve the right to change those at any time. They won’t draw a line in the sand and say, ‘These are the things that we will not do.’” The Stranger reached out to McClatchy for comment. They didn’t respond. Most of the problems come from “curations,” an AI tool that summarizes the newsroom’s published reporter-written articles into a single listicle that links back to the original reporting.  The listicles are usually reviewed by editors, but the writers don’t typically get to see them before they’re published. Outdated information and inaccuracies can slip through. Karlee Van De Venter, a Tri-City Herald reporter and member of the paper’s bargaining unit, said union members reviewed dozens of published AI-generated curations and found errors in many of them. One listicle conflated Point Ruston, a resort-like waterfront community, with the city of Ruston. Others falsely attributed content on their website—like PR community guides from local organizations—to the Herald. “Outside of news, that might seem like a small discrepancy, but it is falsely claiming to be referencing journalism to the public,” Van De Venter said. Kristine Sherred, food and dining reporter at the Tacoma News Tribune and the unit’s cochair, said she understands why struggling print newspapers want to use AI to keep up.  But the union wants guardrails.  “The way that McClatchy has seemed to be experimenting with AI has not necessarily inspired confidence,” Sherred said. “And as a journalism organization, you don’t want to do anything that could erode trust in an industry that already is suffering from a great break of the public’s trust in it.” The union has issued several proposals over the past six months, including clear labeling of AI-generated content, human review of AI material, bans on impersonating journalists and using deepfakes, and guarantees that AI won’t be used to replace reporters. Other unions, like NewsGuild-CWA (Communications Workers of America), who represent newsrooms like POLITICO and ProPublica, have been fighting for similar AI guardrails.  According to Clark, the company tentatively agreed to several protections, including human review of content generated from journalists’ original reporting, prohibiting AI for news gathering purposes, banning AI impersonation of journalists, and clearly labeling AI-generated content. “There remain issues of disagreement and bargaining will continue, Clark wrote in an email to The Stranger, “but we believe these major concessions by McClatchy show the real power of collective organizing and bargaining, especially for journalists seeking to protect the integrity of our profession.”  ...read more read less