As a profession, journalists are becoming increasingly concerned about how artificial intelligence is eroding the public’s trust in the news.
So on Dec. 1, the journalists union NewsGuild-CWA launched a new campaign called “News, Not Slop.” Slop has come to be the term describing low-quality, surface-level digital content generated by AI.
The union campaign, hashtag #NewsNotSlop, is meant to raise awareness about AI and its consequences and how unionized journalists are fighting to make sure that journalism for humans is led by humans.
NewsGuild-CWA represents 27,000 workers at major media companies including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Business Insider, POLITICO, and ProPublica.
Central to the campaign is TNG-CWA’s “Demands for Ethical AI in Journalism” which outlines bargaining demands of unionized journalists to protect their jobs and the quality of their work.
“We’ve seen countless examples of media companies’ haphazard implementation of AI in our newsrooms and the damage it causes to the credibility of the news industry,” said Ariel Wittenberg, environmental reporter at POLITICO and unit chair of her NewsGuild local, in a union press statement.
The campaign launch comes after the union won an arbitration case against POLITICO management over the company’s unilateral introduction of artificial intelligence tools that bypassed negotiated safeguards and undermined core journalistic standards. NewsGuild represents nearly 260 journalists at POLITICO and E&E News. The case marks one of the first major labor arbitration rulings addressing the impact of AI on journalists’ work, and could set a precedent for the entire U.S. news industry.
On Dec. 4, NewsGuild members at Reuters distributed informational flyers outside its New York offices in response to the company’s refusal to agree to strong AI language in contract negotiations.
“AI is a tool that can support our work,” said Mark Olalde, an environment journalist at ProPublica and member of the ProPublica Guild bargaining committee in the NewGuild press statement. “But there is no AI function, no matter how advanced, that can replace a human’s ability, our ability, to fully consider journalism’s ethical implications, to relate with a story’s subjects through lived experience or to approach an investigation with thoughtfulness and integrity. You can’t copy that with technology.”
Unionized journalists will also launch a petition bringing readers into the fight to protect news as well as lead a national town hall, featuring speakers on the front lines of fighting back against unethical AI uses.
“The good news: Across our union, we’ve won strong contract language that protects jobs and erects guardrails to protect the integrity of our members’ work,” said Jon Schleuss, TNG-CWA president. “It’s through this Week of AI Action that we’ll keep that momentum going and win strong protections in every shop to ensure there’s always a human behind the journalism.”
