Free (fallin')

On newspapers, free access, and chat gpt

This week saw massive layoffs from the newsroom at the Los Angeles Times. It follows shortly after some shifting around at Conde Nast and the apparent collapse of Sports Illustrated. Not an encouraging time for journalists. (Is there a word though for the feeling when you see an editor who always ghosted your pitches has now lost their job?)

The LA Times situation seems to be the kind of newsroom cuts we’ve seen elsewhere, including the Washington Post. The legacy media just can’t seem to support the kind of journalism it used to.

The Sports Illustrated saga however had the added twist that they’d been using AI to write some stories. According to that piece, they’d gone further than using AI shortcuts: they even created fake bylines with AI headshots. an AI generated newsroom.