The upcoming lawsuit will be one of the biggest moves publishers have made against AI companies. Some publishers have successfully persuaded news media companies not to sue by offering lucrative deals to license content to train models. In the last year alone, OpenAI has signed licensing deals with the Financial Times, Condé Nast, Dotdash Meredith, News Corp, The Atlantic, Vox Media and Hearst, while Perplexity and Meta each agreed deals with a handful of news publishers. did. .
Broader concerns about AI and content use have also reinvigorated the News Media Alliance, which has been renamed the Newspaper Association of America. News Media Alliances are not always known for being particularly aggressive or publicly protective of the members they represent. The association has become increasingly visible in recent years, becoming one of the main ways media organizations push back against technology companies whose AI products siphon traffic, attention, and potentially advertising dollars from publishers. It has become.
Still, while the uncertainty around AI has renewed the NMA’s purpose and brought many publishers together, it has also exposed uncomfortable tensions between the two.
In a conference call Wednesday, Mike Reid, CEO and chairman of newspaper publisher Gannett, harshly criticized Axios for partnering with OpenAI in the local market. NMA members are discussing how the organization will publish future indictments, with exclusive coverage in the New York Times and, if the Times denies exclusive coverage, in the Wall Street Journal. , and offered to give Axios exclusive coverage if both papers passed. That story. Three people on the call said Mr. Reed protested giving Axios the scoop, pointing to its recent partnership with OpenAI and accusing it of “stealing” content from the local market.
Gannett spokeswoman Lark-Marie Anton said in an email to Semaphore that Reed’s comments were taken out of context.
“My recollection is that Mike Reid mentioned Axios in the context of the story being pitched,” Anton said. “Your sources are providing false information and frankly irresponsible.”
NMA President Daniel Coffey told Semafor in an email that he does not remember this part of the conversation as Semafor described it. Axios did not respond to a request for comment.
