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."