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Monday, August 28, 2023

Tech moguls will participate in Chuck Schumer's A.I. forum, Condé Nast names new Bon Appétit editor, Fox News apologizes to Gold Star family, Elon Musk gets jeered, Max says it will host some AMC content, and HBO cancels "The Idol." But first, the A1.

THE A1

Closed to OpenAI

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Getty Images

News organizations are in a cold war with OpenAI.

While a shot has yet to be fired, some of the nation's largest newsrooms are actively taking defensive measures to safeguard their content from ChatGPT, the groundbreaking artificial intelligence chatbot that is seen as a potential aggressor to an already struggling news industry.

A multitude of leading newsrooms have recently injected code into their websites that blocks OpenAI's web crawler, GPTBot, from scanning their platforms for content. The Guardian's Ariel Bogle reported last week that CNN, The New York Times, and Reuters had blocked GPTBot. But a Reliable Sources review has found several additional news and media giants have also quietly taken this step, including Disney, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Axios, Insider, ABC News, ESPN, and the Gothamist, among others. Publishers such as Condé Nast, Hearst, and Vox Media, which all house several prominent publications, have also taken the defensive measure.

The deep archives and intellectual property rights of these news organizations are immensely valuable — arguably crucial — to training A.I. models such as ChatGPT in efforts to provide users with accurate information. As one news executive, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on behalf of his company, told me on Monday: "Most of the internet is garbage. Traditional media publishers, on the other hand, are fact driven and offer quality content."

Despite the posturing behind the scenes, none of the outlets that have taken the preventive measure of blocking GPTBot offered an on-the-record response when I reached out for comment on Monday. But the move to insert code disallowing OpenAI from drawing on their large libraries of content to train its ever-learning ChatGPT bot reflects the degree to which news organizations are spooked by the company's technology and are quietly working to address it.

Danielle Coffey, president and chief executive of the News Media Alliance, told me on Monday that news organizations are indeed alarmed by the rapidly advancing technology. Coffey said that the News Media Alliance, which represents nearly 2,000 publishers in the U.S., believes newsrooms "are on solid legal ground when it comes to copyright protections." Nevertheless, they're apprehensive about how companies like OpenAI might further upend the already embattled news sector.

"I see a heightened sense of urgency when it comes to addressing the use, and misuse, of our content," Coffey said. "One publisher told me it is an existential threat. Another publisher told me there isn't a business model with certain uses of A.I. ... there is a sense of urgency to address this."

What exactly these media giants do next, however, remains to be seen. News organizations might feel they're on solid legal ground, as Coffey told me, but there has yet to be any serious action taken against the OpenAI. Barry Diller has likely gone the furthest by taking a notably aggressive stance and signaling a future lawsuit. The NYT is also reportedly weighing whether to sue OpenAI. Meanwhile, the Associated Press went a different route, hammering out its own licensing deal with the A.I. developer, though it notably did not share key terms of the agreement.

If the issue is not resolved, enormous damage could be inflicted on the publishing industry, imperiling the information environment in the U.S. and around the world even more than it is now. It's not difficult to imagine how A.I. bots integrated into search, apps, and now-ubiquitous smart devices might put many newsrooms out of business, ironically doing so by using the very information they've derived from those newsrooms. Once these outlets are wiped from existence, a void of authoritative sources to train A.I. models would be created, and misinformation could be authoritatively passed along by confused bots feeding off a diet of bad information.

"If there is nothing left of quality to feed on," Coffey said, "then we are all going to end up with a very bleak future."

Despite the stakes being so high, the vast majority of news organizations are declining for now to publicly address the matter. Instead, they're simply opting to discreetly lock their content in a protective vault until a more concrete battle plan can be hammered out. The news executive that I spoke to on Monday said that, at the very least, blocking GPTBot does make an unmistakeable point.

"It sends a signal," the executive said. "Talk to us."

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Eyes on A.I.: Mark September 13 on your calendars. That's when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will hold the first of his A.I. Insights Forums. Confirmed guests for the inaugural event include Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, Sam Altman, and Satya Nadella. The event will not be open to the press, but Schumer's office has said it will offer a readout after it wraps. Axios' Maria Curi and Ashley Gold, who first reported the news, have the details here.

THE INDUSTRY

THE FOURTH ESTATE

NBC News announced that Kristen Welker will officially take over as moderator of "Meet the Press" on September 17. (Variety)
Karlie Kloss "is in talks to buy i-D magazine from Vice Media," per Lauren Sherman. (Puck)
Corbin Bolies reports on how BuzzFeed has been publishing celebrity stories on BuzzFeed News' "zombie-like homepage," rankling former staffers who were told the website would "become static" after the outlet was shuttered. (Daily Beast)
Joe Pompeo talks to Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb about a wide range of topics facing the industry, including whether news orgs can survive in an increasingly difficult climate: "We had a guest at the journalism school who said he's come to think of journalism as like being a restaurateur. There are all sorts of downsides to opening a restaurant, yet people open restaurants and succeed and find ways for restaurants to continue to exist." (Vanity Fair)
The NYT added "Connections" to its games app, a new word association puzzle that challenges users across topics. Jordan Valinsky spoke with Jonathan Knight, head of games at the outlet, about the move. (CNN)
RIP: "Douglas B. Feaver, a long-serving Washington Post transportation reporter and a versatile editor who oversaw the newspaper's Web operations in their infancy, died Aug. 28 at a care unit of his retirement home in Alexandria, Va. He was 84." (WaPo)

THE MARKET

Netflix "wants to woo sports fans without paying for rights — and it seems to be working," Christofer Hamilton reports. (TheWrap)

HOLLYWOOD HELL

Lucas Shaw's latest outlines the current state of play: "Hollywood studios hoped to end the strike. They couldn't close the deal." (Bloomberg)
Gene Maddaus described the negotiations as "in limbo after a week of public sparring." (Variety)
Brooks Barnes and John Koblin take a closer look at Carol Lombardini, the studios' top negotiator. "Wanted or not, the spotlight has found her," they write. (NYT)
Melonee Hurt reports that Nashville's "Music Row" is feeling the toll of the strikes. (The Tennessean)
On another labor front: Disney's VFX workers have filed for unionization, week's after Marvel's did the same. (CNN)

MEDIA MOVES

Condé Nast named Jamila Robinson the new editor in chief of Bon Appétit and Epicurious. (NYT)
The WaPo named Susannah George its gulf bureau chief. (WaPo)
The NYT hired Shanice Bland as a video operations manager and Isabel Montes as a recipe video editor for its video cooking team. The NYT also promoted Nathan Willis to assistant editor. (NYT/NYT)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Mike Segar/Reuters

We Report, Then Delete: Fox News over the weekend apologized to a Gold Star family for publishing a false story about the family supposedly needing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to ship the remains of their fallen relative back to the U.S. from Afghanistan. "The now unpublished story has been addressed internally and we sincerely apologize to the Gee family," a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement, referencing the family of fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, who was one of 13 service members killed in a terror attack at the Kabul airport in 2021. A few observations:

► The public apology only came after a Military.com report last week drew attention to the issue and indicated by way of a public records request that the right-wing outlet's top executives had repeatedly been notified by senior members of the Marine Corps that it was pushing a false story.

►After being notified of the error, Fox News initially only deleted the story from its website with no retraction or editor's note, yet another major break of traditional news ethics for the outlet. This is the so-called "news division" that Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum are the faces of.

► Fox News said the story has been "addressed internally," but declined to say specifically how it was addressed. Was Fox News Digital Editor-In-Chief Porter Berry reprimanded? Someone else? Who, if anyone, faced disciplinary measures over the matter and the way it was handled?

► The episode illustrates how the rest of the news media grades Fox News on a huge curve. If a news organization such as The WaPo or CNN behaved in such an irresponsible manner, it would be treated by the rest of the press as a major scandal. But in this case, outlets such as The NYT and The WSJ didn't even bother running stories on the error and the outlet's egregious conduct afterward. They pretend Fox News has a serious news operation, but sure don't treat them as such.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

Fox News "is running back the Ukraine disinformation campaign that led to former President Donald Trump's first impeachment as its hosts desperately scrounge for a justification for impeaching President Joe Biden," Matt Gertz writes. (MMFA)
Remember Barack Obama's so-called "American apology tour" way back when that incited the right? Well, Tucker Carlson is apparently on his own, traveling to Hungary to apologize on behalf of the U.S. as he continues to speak glowingly of autocrat Viktor Orbán. (Newsweek)
Must read from Will Bunch: "Journalism fails miserably at explaining what is really happening to America." (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Jake Tapper used the column on Monday to ask Chris Christie if the GOP has "an authoritarian problem." (Mediaite)
Charlotte Klein: MSNBC "is having its Super Bowl with Donald Trump's indictments." (Vanity Fair)
This must be the bottom: Ron DeSantis' campaign is accusing Donald Trump of "fake news." (Axios)
Snap back to reality: Eminem warned Vivek Ramaswamy not to use or perform his music after the presidential hopeful rapped "Lose Yourself" while at the Iowa State Fair. (Deadline)
A Newsmax pundit ripped Oliver Anthony Music, the viral "Rich Men North of Richmond" singer who disassociated with the right in a recent video: "Slapping in the face the people who made him famous." (Mediaite)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Tingshu Wang/Reuters

Elon's Unpleasant Entry: It appears the world of online gamers are not too happy with Elon Musk these days. The erratic billionaire was met with jeers as he made a stop at a video game tournament over the weekend. Audio posted by reporter Jake Lucky captured some people even shouting, "Bring back Twitter!" This isn't the first time Musk has been booed. Last year, he had a less-than-ideal welcome while making a surprise appearance at a Dave Chappelle show. Gizmodo's Thomas Germain has more here.

TOO MANY TABS

X saw active users and its rankings drop after its chaotic rebrand, Sarah Perez reports. (TechCrunch)
Users complaining about X's poor customer service are being singled out by scammers since the Elon Musk-owned company relaxed its verification process, Anna Tims reports. (The Guardian)
I haven't seen any stories on it, but the Threads desktop interface is not only bare bones, but also quite glitchy and very slow.
Brian Fung reports on how Big Tech "must comply with a sweeping new European law starting Friday that affects everything from social media moderation to targeted advertising and counterfeit goods in e-commerce — with possible ripple effects for the rest of the world." (CNN)
Tracey Lindeman writes about how Meta's news block is causing "chaos as Canada burns." (WIRED)
Google will begin selling some of its Maps data to boost renewable energy projects, Jennifer Elias reports. (CNBC)

CURTAIN CALL

AMC to the Max: The streamers are getting more and more creative. After Warner Bros. Discovery raised eyebrows by licensing content to Netflix (I must admit, I am still trying to get used to seeing "Ballers" pop up in the Netflix library), the company has struck a notable deal with AMC Networks. The deal will result in more than 200 episodes of AMC shows, including "Fear the Walking Dead," heading to the Max platform between September 1 and October 31. "The AMC+ collection pop up is an excellent example of how we can use innovative strategies to add value to our content offering," WBD exec Meredith Gertler said in a statement. That said, some of AMC's most popular shows, such as "Breaking Bad" and "The Walking Dead," won't be available on Max. CNBC's Lillian Rizzo has details here.

OFF STAGE

"The Idol," the much-hyped Sam Levinson-created HBO series has been canceled after one widely-panned season. (Deadline)
"Gran Turismo" sped to $17.4 million at the domestic box office. (AP)
But the Sony film is feuding with "Barbie" over who actually won the weekend, Brent Lang reports. (Variety)
Elton John is reportedly "back at home and in good health" after visiting a hospital in the south of France following a fall at his home. (CNN)
Liam Payne of One Direction fame canceled his South America tour, announcing he has "serious kidney infection." (CNN)
The Hollywood Critics Association announced it will rebrand itself as the Hollywood Creative Alliance following accusations of malfeasance and allegations that it fostered a toxic work environment. (Variety)
Amy Kaufman profiled Jay Shetty. (LAT)
The first look at Netflix's "The Killer," the David Fincher-directed film starring Michael Fassbender, is out — and it looks great. (The Wrap)
Denis Villeneuve, whose "Dune: Part Two" has been pushed back, said making a third movie "would be the dream." (Empire)

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino and produced with the assistance of Liam Reilly. Have feedback? Send us an email here. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow.