Good morning everyone. While Tom Jones is on vacation, the Poynter team is monitoring the latest media news and analysis.
The Plain Dealer is once again facing criticism for its use of generative artificial intelligence.
Two months after gaining national attention for using AI to create news stories, Cleveland.com, the digital arm of the 184-year-old newspaper, has introduced AI-generated video on social media. The video also featured a cartoon mascot named TT, short for local landmark Terminal Tower.
In one video, a talking building, complete with googly eyes and gesturing hands, highlights Cleveland Guardians catcher Austin Hedges’ recent marriage proposal. In another video, animated avatars of Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn and content director Laura Johnston talk about marriage age laws.
Mr. Quinn did not respond to Mr. Poynter’s request for comment. Axios Cleveland reporter Sam Allard posted an exchange with Quinn on X.
“We use AI because we don’t have the resources to do it any other way,” he wrote. “AI makes that possible.”
Although neither video includes any AI disclosures, data from Poynter and the University of Minnesota shows that AI disclosures are important for viewer trust.
The move is a significant escalation from Plain Dealer’s previous AI experiments. Last fall, the paper hired an “AI rewriting specialist” and began using Advance Local’s internal ChatGPT tool to draft stories from press notes and press releases.
“Journalism has a brand problem,” Washington Post reporter and cultural commentator Gene Park wrote in X. “Do we really want to dilute an already underperforming brand with homogenized (generated AI) images so that our journalism looks exactly like a moisturizer ad?”
“What’s the point of letting an AI screw up your comic book reporter?” Associated Press staff cameraman Lindsey Wasson wrote in X: “Get it on camera or just play the audio. Don’t make your reporting look like a trash YouTube ad that people want to skip. This is the lowest common denominator thing.”
Users left a flurry of negative messages on Instagram, with some criticizing the lack of disclosure and calling the video “bizarre.”
“I don’t pay any attention to the comments of trolls on social media,” Quinn wrote to Allard. “They attack everything. The measure of success here is whether people are watching them.”
– Alex Mahadevan
“Internet Manager”
For this item, we turn to Angie Drobnik Horan, director of Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network.
If you fire the “custodians of the internet,” how long will it be before chaos gets out of control? That was the central question at a panel I moderated last week on the “digital cold war” between the United States and Europe at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.
For years, there has been a kind of trade where platforms demand authenticity and fact checkers help provide it. But that deal disappeared after Meta effectively ended its U.S. partnerships with fact checkers like PolitiFact and FactCheck.org last year (a move welcomed by President Trump). In America, accuracy is a political responsibility.
partnership? That’s laughable, said Courtney Radosh of the Journalism and Liberty Center, which studies accountability in technology.
“How many large companies think of stewards as their partners? Platform fact-checking has essentially turned journalists into stewards of the internet,” she says.
Chris Morris of London-based Full Fact reframes the janitor metaphor.
“If you don’t clean your headquarters, eventually it’s going to get so dirty that someone shuts it down. So I think you should say to the custodians, ‘You did it.'” Morris noted that, unlike the US, the UK and Europe support regulations that require more responsible platform design.
Ana Bracs of Croatia’s Factgraf said the janitors could use a little more support from charities. Fact checkers in small countries around the world have relied on project-based funding, which is now running out. She highlighted the “betrayal” of funding and said many charities are “hiding under a rock” as political pressure on fact-checkers reaches its peak.
What’s next for fact-checking? The way forward could include building a “market for facts” within the AI revolution. Instead of begging for platform traffic, Radosh is insisting on some kind of legal license or separate business deals. “Why not make the rules of the road? … Build them into the marketplace,” she said, noting that news and facts collectively play an important role.
I concluded the panel by pointing out that even though fact-checking organizations are cutting staff, their audiences are still growing. People don’t know what to believe, but they know that fact-checking journalists are at least trying to sort truth from fiction, to keep the internet a little cleaner despite advances in AI. (Watch the panel on YouTube.)
McClatchy’s layoffs and resignations, significant revisions, and other media information
New York Times Editor-in-Chief Joseph Kahn criticized the FBI’s investigation of Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson, calling it an “alarming” attempt by the agency to “criminalize routine reporting.” The Times’ Michael Schmidt reported Wednesday that the FBI investigated Mr. Williamson after Mr. Williamson reported that Mr. Patel used department resources to provide security and transportation for his girlfriend. Khan said in an internal memo obtained by CNN that while there is “no reason to believe this is a widespread practice” by the FBI, it “demonstrates an escalation in tactics to chill and intimidate reporters who reveal information unfavorable to the administration.”
charlotte observer is losing its two top editors. QCity Metro reported Thursday that the paper’s editor-in-chief, Lana Cash, has resigned from her position. Additionally, Editor-in-Chief Taylor Batten, who has worked at the Observer since 1995, will leave the company on May 1 after the company abolished her position. Cash made history in 2021 when he was named the Observer’s first black editor. Her past experience includes writing for the Miami Herald, the Dallas Morning News, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Cash confirmed in an email Thursday that May 1 will be her last day, but declined to comment at this time. Batten also declined to comment. The changes follow news of additional layoffs at McClatchy, which owns the Observer and other newspapers.
Nexstar is the nation’s largest owner of local television stationsis appealing a court order prohibiting its merger with Tegna. A federal judge ruled last week that the two companies cannot merge until a lawsuit alleging that Nexstar is creating a monopoly is resolved. Nexstar said the transaction has been completed. DirectTV and eight state attorneys general filed a lawsuit seeking to block the merger because Nexstar would reach 80% of U.S. TV households. Under federal law, companies can only reach 39%. Nexstar CEO Perry Souk responded to claims that Nexstar will become a “broadcast giant” in an interview at Tuesday’s National Association of Broadcasters conference. He said this is not an accurate claim because his company competes with much larger companies such as Google and Meta. This merger represents major concerns about consolidation in the broadcasting industry. If there are fewer owners, we suspect there will be fewer perspectives in news reporting.
Meanwhile, EW Scripps wants to own more TV stations. The company has requested a waiver from the FCC to acquire approximately 24 television stations affiliated with the AEON network. The newly acquired stations will allow Scripps to serve more households than allowed by law. The move leaves Mr. Scripps as owner of three stations in Phoenix, Detroit, Denver, Cleveland, Kansas City and West Palm Beach, Florida. Norfolk and Lexington, Kentucky; It also asks the FCC to waive rules that allow it to own only two stations in a market. The FCC is seeking to challenge Scripps’ request.
Poynter former chairman Andrew BurnsThe man who guided the institute through the attempted hostile takeover of the Tampa Bay Times died Thursday at the age of 86. The cause of death has not been disclosed. Burns led the Times to multiple Pulitzer Prizes and helped secure its status as an independent publication. “This initiative not only preserved the paper’s independence and local control, but also helped solidify the very concept of nonprofit ownership, a key element of today’s news landscape,” said Neil Brown, current president and chairman of the Poynter Institute.
Those who have worked at Horticultural Variety Newspaper I know that when a crossword puzzle is messed up, I get more feedback from readers about it than the most explosive research. Still, a New York Magazine report on the aftermath of an unsolvable puzzle published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine found a new level of vulnerability among puzzle solvers: “Some solvers who completed Sunday’s puzzles in print magazines (often with a pen) complained on crossword forums and social media that they “almost cried,” while others feared “sudden-onset dementia” or worse, incompetence.” When Mike McFadden said this in New Jersey and I couldn’t decipher it, he thought, I didn’t think they would make a mistake. ”It bothered him all day. For others, this mistake caused an existential crisis. “I believe it’s always something at least someone can understand,” said Eileen Papris, a former writing lecturer at Trinity College. “The world is making less and less sense. I mean, ‘Crossword puzzles? Neither do you!’
Kick them when they are down: Perhaps to distract from his own mistakes, a corrective article in the New York Times published the free shot. “Correction made on April 21, 2026. Due to an editorial error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly listed the day the New York Mets lost 11 straight games. It was Sunday, not Monday. Even the Mets can’t afford to lose on their off day.”
Today’s Pointer Report was written by Alex Mahadevan, Angie Drobnic Holan, Amaris Castillo, TyLisa C. Johnson, Kerwin Speight, Angela Fu, and Jennifer Orsi.
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Have feedback or tips? Email Poynter Senior Media Writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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