Tortoise reveals big Observer hire | Newsquest has 36 AI-assisted reporters
Plus The Telegraph has removed an article after legal threat from Stop Funding Hate and journalists testify in Noel Clarke's libel claim against The Guardian
Good morning and welcome to your daily Press Gazette media briefing on Wednesday, 2 April.
AI-written news feels like the stuff of dystopian nightmares because so much AI-generated content is misleading and deeply creepy.
But Newsquest editorial director Toby Granville has championed the technology as something which is genuinely freeing up reporters from grunt work to focus on more original distinctive journalism.
He revealed that the UK's second-largest regional news publisher now has 36 journalists working purely on checking and publishing stories which are largely written by AI assistants based on press releases.
The carrot for the AI-assisted reporters themselves is training in cutting-edge technology and they are free to go back to traditional beat reporting whenever they want, Granville said.
The Telegraph has taken down an article accusing the campaign group Stop Funding Hate of encouraging anti-Semitic hate and agreed to pay legal costs.
And Tortoise Media has announced its first big hire for The Observer ahead of completing its takeover of the title later this month. Times columnist Rachel Sylvester is a former British Journalism Awards winner who has been making big waves with solutions-based journalism (a series of special commissions which have sought out policy solutions to major public policy challenges).
The Observer is already promising to be a dramatically different beast under Tortoise as more than half its 70 staff have either taken redundancy or new jobs at The Guardian rather than move across to the new owner.
And we have the latest from actor Noel Clarke's libel trial against The Guardian, as head of investigations Paul Lewis and one of the journalists behind the story, Lucy Osborne, have taken to the witness stand.
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On Press Gazette
Rachel Sylvester collecting Politics Journalism prize at British Journalism Awards 2016
Rachel Sylvester named Observer political editor as around half staff leave title
At time of writing, Press Gazette understands from several sources that around half of the 70 Observer staff have taken redundancy and around a further six have taken jobs at The Guardian.
Newsquest now employing 36 ‘AI-assisted reporters’
Granville connected the AI-assisted reporters directly to Newsquest’s efforts to build loyal local audiences, saying their work “frees up the rest of the newsroom to actually be out pounding the beat, knocking on doors, getting original content that people are willing to pay for”.
Telegraph takes down Stop Funding Hate article after legal threat
Press Gazette understands Stop Funding Hate’s lawyers are separately in touch with GB News over segments on its Headliners and Free Speech Nation programmes in which presenters and guests discussed the Telegraph story.
Guardian journalist checked Noel Clarke allegations ‘again and again’
Lucy Osborne, one of the two main Guardian reporters involved in the investigation and writing of articles about Clarke’s alleged conduct, said Gina Powell told her she was “almost groomed” by him when working for his production company Unstoppable.
Noel Clarke ‘pressured women to keep quiet’ ahead of Guardian publication
Paul Lewis, The Guardian’s head of investigations, said he did not want to give Clarke longer than necessary to respond to the allegations before publication out of fear that he would discourage women from speaking out.
News in brief
Substack-based The Free Press now has 1.2 million subscribers, of which almost 155,000 are paid. The company is making a push into audio, piloting five shows this summer, and has plans to expand in events. (Axios)
A Savanta poll commissioned by the Publishers Association suggests 79% of MPs agree that AI companies should pay authors and publishers for work fed into their LLMs. (The Times)
Crosby Associates Media is launching the Rochdale Times website in partnership with former Daily Express executive editor and Northern Echo group editor Karl Holbrook's PR and media consultancy. It's in response to the closure of Rochdale Online. (Rochdale Times)
Also on Press Gazette:
Vox sees boom in paying readers for explainer journalism under Trump 2
Former Express editor Gary Jones joins Dale Vince’s Ecotricity
Guido Fawkes owner Paul Staines pays £75,000 libel case costs to Dale Vince
BBC to ‘open up conversation’ with AI providers and invest further in Tiktok
Mirror editor says newsroom ‘coming along on journey’ with page-view targets
Southport knife attack misinformation due to police PR secrecy say crime journalists
Latest Press Gazette podcast
Latest podcast: Generative AI could spell doomsday or a be a big pay day for publishers
Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford caught up with New York-based publishing consultant Matthew Scott Goldstein (MSG) to talk about the future of news in the era of AI.
How concerned should publishers be about the threat posed to their business models by generative AI? It’s a 9.9 out of ten said MSG.
He explained why generative AI could spell the end of the road for publisher websites, but why it could also lead to a huge payday for the creators of quality content.