New! Listen in to the CIMA interview on Lumpen Radio (details below)
Greetings, Dear Reader:
I’ve been busy! As you may have seen, a couple weeks ago I posted a Letter from the Editor detailing “Why I’ll Quit Publishing the McKinley Park News.” I published this after I discovered that “artificial intelligence” businesses and researchers — ones who use large language models (or “LLMs”) to power their human-seeming chat interfaces — had seemingly stolen absolutely everything from the McKinley Park News and were using our work to launch their own and others’ competing products and services: all without providing notice, asking permission or providing any remuneration.
This isn’t just an assault on my business: It’s also an assault on your local news. As I wrote in my letter, there’s no reason for anyone to try to report on local news and make a living at it if everything we do is stolen and used against us.
However, I am not giving up without a fight! I have been working around the clock, reaching out to lawyers, experts, fellow publishers, journalism institutions and associations, elected officials, technology groups and others to try to build a coalition and get help. And it’s starting to happen: Here’s a rundown of some of what we’ve done to date to fight AI theft of our content and expertise:
At the May 25, 2023 meeting of the Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA), I alerted members to what I discovered about AI theft of our content, raising awareness and concern with fellow local independent news publishers. In addition to recruiting fellow CIMA members into an alliance toward fighting this theft, I’m also advocating that CIMA require as a condition of membership a moratorium on use of Large Language Models and their services that contain stolen content and expertise.
I’ve also called for this to be adopted as a condition of membership with LION Publishers, a national media association of which we’re a member. Many thanks to LION for sharing our Letter from the Editor in their recent newsletter.
- On June 3, 2023, I met with 12th Ward Alderwoman Julia Ramirez, who, along with Chief of Staff Bill Drew, graciously heard my concerns as a constituent business and resident about AI theft of our local news service.
At this meeting, I presented Julia with her very first constituent ordinance request: that the City of Chicago adopt a moratorium on use of Large Language Model-based technologies and services that employ stolen content and expertise, including stolen goods purloined from Chicago’s own news publishers. Click here to read our Chicago Ordinance proposal to regulate AI.
Other CIMA members in our alliance are also doing aldermanic outreach: Any other City Council members who want to help local news should get in touch and join the team.
Government regulation of AI – and the ethics behind it – really isn’t complicated, despite what so many want to make you think. Here, as a start, is a simple, universal principle: DON’T STEAL.
- This coming week, I’ll be attending an event called Media Party Chicago. I feel a bit like a burglary victim attending a meeting of the Thieves Guild, since this conference highlights individuals and enterprises seemingly stealing from the McKinley Park News and so many others.
As seen at Media Party Chicago and elsewhere, cluelessness and disingeniousness are the hallmarks of the Large Language Model community and journalism institutions using and promoting services based on stolen goods. One conference session invites us to learn about the “gold” that can be exploited using AI ... even though we the audience are the victims being exploited. Others feature national-level news organizations shamelessly stealing journalists' labor by using large language model services without qualifying their provenance, or making any consideration for ethics at all.
Similarly, the conference lists a lineup of august institutions that supposedly support local journalism, yet none seemingly operate with even a basic AI ethics policy that prohibits theft of content and expertise from publications like the McKinley Park News. These institutions give credence to thieves at the expense of local journalism by sponsoring and participating in a bazaar that trafficks in stolen goods. Where are your ethics and supposed leadership? How could you stand beside those who steal from us?
Part of our Media Party Chicago participation is proposing a “hack-a-thon” project: a problem faced by local news publishers that the technologists and others at Media Party can help solve. I, along with a growing list of Chicago publishers and voices of authority in the local journalism community, will submit that the Media Party Chicago Hack-a-Thon create research and resources to support legally safe discovery about theft of our content: a huge problem on the frontier of law for local news publishers and our attorneys.
Click here to read our Media Party Chicago Hack-a-Thon proposal. Are you a local news publisher who would like to see a legal tool like this developed to help you fight AI theft of your content? Get in touch to add your name to the proposal of those advocating for this Hack-a-Thon project at Media Party Chicago.
- We’ve started to get some great traction with other local media and publishers who are similarly aghast at this theft of our news products and livelihoods as journalists. In addition to the ongoing stalwart support of Inside Publications, the following media have highlighted the issue of AI theft of our content and expertise:
WGN Radio’s “Outside the Loop” program featured the AI theft issue and the fight against it in its Saturday, June 3, 2023, broadcast. Click here to read more and listen in.
- Columnist Eric Zorn featured the issue and our Letter from the Editor in the June 1, 2023, edition of The Picayune Sentinel. Click here to read about Eric’s coverage.
Lumpen Radio’s Sandra Treviño interviewed me and local journalism luminary Tracy Baim as part of the programs supporting fund-raising for CIMA, with Tracy chimining in on AI’s theft of content. The episode will be coming up this Tuesday, June 6, 2023, on Lumpen Radio; click here to read more.
- The award-winning Chicago Public Square blog highlighted our Letter from the Editor in its May 26, 2023, edition, kicking off many connections to fellow publishers and media.
- As noted in the media release about the three North Side newspapers also speaking out against this AI theft, the Illinois Press Association is adding their support and advocacy against this unauthorized use of and profit from local news content.
- We’ll be discussing this theft of our content at a live Technology & Media panel at 1 p.m. on Thursday, June 8, 2023, as part of discussions with journalists tied to the just-launched CIMA fund-raiser. Connect via the following event links: Eventbrite, Facebook, Zoom.
- We’ve reached out for help from our elected officials at the federal, state and municipal levels, including the aforementioned meeting with 12th Ward Alderwoman Julia Ramirez. Many thanks to Illinois 24th District State Representative Theresa Mah for forwarding our problem and concern to legal resources operating statewide.
We hope to hear back soon from our elected officials in the U.S. Congress after reaching out to them about the theft of our local news. Please help us!
All of this work against AI theft also steals the main thing I should be focusing on, which is reporting on our neighborhood’s news and events. However, as detailed in my Letter from the Editor, there’s simply no point in even trying to publish local news if it’s all going to be stolen and used against us.
I do anticipate and hope for resolution of this situation, even though we’re starting the fight seemingly without the assistance of any of the institutions and organizations that are supposed to be helping local news. I encourage these groups to do the right thing, and for other independent publishers to speak up against this theft of our content, expertise and livelihoods.
We’ll see what happens later this week at Media Party, as well as if more begin to wake up to this enormous problem. I’ll certainly send reports from the trenches, as well as look forward to getting back to normal operations. It’s tough enough to do local news, much less attempt to do so when everything is being stolen from you.
Thank you for your attention and consideration of this issue, and for your continued support as we work against the thieves trying to make it impossible to have a sustainable local news business. More soon! Cheers!
— Justin Kerr
Publisher, McKinley Park News
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