Major media group McClatchy urges journalists to use AI to write articles

McClatchy Media is urging news writers and journalists to use a new AI tool powered by Claude to increase production and content, and even having editors take existing stories and remake them with AI. McClatchy, which owns 30 outlets from Sacramento, California to Beaufort, South Carolina, has implemented a "content scaling agent" that already has unions in a panic. There have already been concerns across industries that workers will be replaced by AI.

The Claude-powered AI tool is billed as a content scaling agent (CSA), meaning that editors can take stories written by journalists and have the CSA rewrite them to be shorter, or for specific audiences. The stories can be redone by the CSA into scripts for videos. And McClatchy intends to use reporters' bylines for these Frankensteined recreations of their work even if reporters don't sign off on them. McClatchy is interested in keeping the authors' names because of the way Google search engines work, which will give authors' work more "authority."

The CSA is billed, reports Corbin Bolies for The Wrap, "as able to 'assist with research, editing, personalization and amplification.'" The company calls it "a writing partner that handles the mechanical work of content adaptation so journalists can focus on what matters: judgment, voice and storytelling."

Claude is made by Anthropic, which has several products that allow users to generate content. Anthropic had a major contract with the Pentagon, which used Claude in multiple capacities, until Anthropic tried to limit how their AI was used within the Department of War and the agency had a major falling out with Anthropic. On Anthropic's site advertising Claude, it reads, "Meet your thinking partner."

Articles created using AI still retain the original author's byline, even as it says "produced with AI assistance" on it. McClatchy told concerned journalists that reporters' names will stay on the new version. "We have every right to use their work," said chief of staff for local news Kathy Vetter. "It belongs to us, and if an editor wants to go... in there and repurpose a reporter's content, they can put their name on it."

"If they don’t have the ability in their contract to remove their byline, we’re going to use their name," she said, "Now, I’m not asking y’all to get in fist fights with all of them, but in the cases where we have to, they get to decide. If they decide not to, again, they don’t get credit. They don’t. We’re going to do it anyway, but they’re not going to get credit for it."

The tool is intended to allow the writer to "author the research draft" and then give it to the CSA to change, redo and adjust "for different audiences and platforms–each with the right tone, length and structure." After the draft is redone by the CSA, the writers can take another crack at it. In that case, said Vetter, the final product may not even say that it was written with the help of AI at all. In her view, adding an AI-assisted byline to the story may be to "downplay" the writer's own edit. She states that "All [the CSA] is doing is reformatting [the article] for us because it's faster and more accurate than doing it manually."

Stories that were researched and written in one market are typically able to be run in other markets. For example, if a media group owns 5 outlets, they are often able to run a story written and published at one outlet or another, or all of their other outlets. This CSA allows the company to rewrite the story to conform to other newsroom style guides, change length, style, lede and headline, before running it, without the author's input.

Writes Boiles: "The CSA can then generate a 'What to Know' summary, with bullet-pointed highlights of the original work now optimized for 'newsletters, social media or time-constrained readers'; a video script to adapt an article for short-form video; or a 'discover explainer,' a 400- to 800-word explainer version that uses phrases optimized for Google."

"Journalists who embrace and experiment with this tool are going to win," said McClatchy VP of local news Eric Nelson during a staff meeting in March, per Bolies "Journalists who are defiant will fall behind. Bottom line: We need more stories and we need more inventory."

He told staffers the new AI-powered content creation concept is "a powerful addition to our toolbox" and that it would help writers reach "new audiences, angles and entry points." What it is intended to do is create more content as quickly as possible by removing the guardrails that come inherent in the brain of a human being.

Bolies reported on insider information he obtained from that March 17 meeting, which has unions in Miami, Sacramento, and Kansas, saying that worker contracts have been violated due to the speedy roll-out and that there must be notice for "major technological change." Those unions say they haven't got enough information about the Claude-powered AI tool.

The tool is already in use and has taken full-length, researched articles and condensed them into bullet point "what to know" style articles that Nelson brags "have done better versions than even the original versions." Nelson told reporters the CSA can help them find something in their story that they didn't "think about."