Union members at Pacific Northwest newspapers owned by McClatchy Media — including The Olympian — are raising the alarm about the company’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the newsroom.
“We, the union members of The Idaho Statesman, The Olympian, The Tacoma News Tribune, Tri-City Herald and Bellingham Herald, refuse to remain silent any longer about the unethical AI practices and plans of our employer, McClatchy Media,” the Idaho and Washington State NewsGuilds said in a news release published on Thursday.
McClatchy Media did not immediately respond to a reporter’s request for comment.
According to the union, McClatchy is pushing to publish AI news stories and images that aren’t clearly labeled as AI and were not reviewed by a human, publish deepfake images and create AI impersonations of reporters for podcasts and videos without their consent — even after they die or quit the company — and force reporters to use AI in their reporting.
McClatchy’s use of AI has already created misinformation and errors, the newsguilds stated, referencing one instance where an AI article in The Idaho Statesman falsely claimed a brewery had closed. The error wasn’t noticed or fixed until a reader contacted the editor, the union claimed.
“We are living in a time when it is more important than ever for people to have factual media sources they trust,” said Eric Rosane, Tri-City Herald civic accountability reporter, Washington State NewsGuild secretary and a former reporter at The Chronicle. “McClatchy is trying to give that trust away and hopes no one will notice — or worse, care.”
McClatchy accelerated its use of AI in 2024 after experimenting with it for a couple of years, according to Washington State NewsGuild Co-Chair and The News Tribune Reporter Kristine Sherred.
Reporters at McClatchy-owned papers in the Pacific Northwest have seen increased pressure to use AI tools such as transcription software and website data scrapers in their reporting, which Sherred said is not inherently a problem.
More concerning to reporters is McClatchy training AI models on reporters’ articles without their consent and then using those models to generate new — often inaccurate — articles. Those articles are then published under the reporter’s name, often without the reporter’s knowledge and without being reviewed by a human editor.
“There is a line between using a tool and using AI to generate actual work,” Sherred said, adding that AI-generated content is not being held to the professional and ethical standards expected of a human reporter.
McClatchy has its own internal guidelines for AI use, but the company has the power to unilaterally change them at any time, Sherred said.
AI guardrails weren’t included in the Washington State NewsGuild’s first three-year contract with McClatchy in 2022, but as AI prevalence in journalism has increased over the last few years, union negotiators made it a top priority for the new contract.
Negotiations for that contract began in June.
The Idaho NewsGuild first negotiated a contract with McClatchy in 2021 and is also negotiating a renewed contract with the company.
Other McClatchy newsrooms facing a similar lack of AI protections include The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, according to the Idaho and Washington State NewsGuilds.
The provisions that the Washington State and Idaho NewsGuilds are asking McClatchy to include in their new contracts boil down to a request that AI not replace human reporters and not lead to a breach of the public’s trust, Sherred said.
McClatchy’s counteroffers have agreed to some of the union’s points — but with loopholes.
For example, the news guilds’ ask that reporters be allowed to review AI-generated articles with their names on them was countered by McClatchy with a proposal that reporters can review AI articles “as practical.”
McClatchy has also reportedly agreed to disclose that it is using AI, but opposed a request that the disclosure be “clear” and “obvious.”
While not yet using these practices, McClatchy has also so far refused to include statements in its union contracts promising that the company will not use deepfake images and will not use AI to impersonate reporters.
The company has also reportedly denied requests to give reporters notice when McClatchy employs new AI technology, and refused to include a statement promising to uphold the company’s own ethical standards, according to the release.
“That’s not only concerning for us as writers, but for the public and what they’re going to see from their newspapers,” Sherred said.
The union negotiators have one more meeting with McClatchy before the December holiday break. After that, negotiations will pick up in January.
The union could strike if both parties reach an impasse, but Sherred said that the unions hope the public campaign to raise awareness about McClatchy’s AI use will help McClatchy see “common sense.”
“Our power is in numbers and hopefully having the public on our side,” Sherred said.
McClatchy Media operates newspapers in 30 markets with 65 million monthly readers.
