In my paper on the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), I examine the history of newspapers’ hostile reception of new technologies and competitors, reaching back a century to the dawn of radio. NiemanLab published excerpts from the paper on the flaws in the legislation and alternatives. I thought some might enjoy other sections, including this one about the tactics newspaper publishes have brought to bear against intruders in what they claim as their turf: news. I also write about some of this in The Gutenberg Parenthesis. It’s a wonderful if in some ways appalling tale:  With ..read more

There is so much to parse in this Times column inspired by a paper examining alleged political leanings of large language models. First, the myth of a “center” is imposed on the machine as it is on journalism. That is an impossibility, especially when extremists weigh down the equation & move “center” by gravity downhill, towards them. Second, in its raw state the model reflects the collected corpus of digital content from those who had the power to publish. Thus, it will reflect that worldview; it is a reflection of that power. Imposing left/right/center on that says little about the mac ..read more

Regarding the supposed furor over #WokeGemini… If we saw generative AI as a creative tool, then I’d say imagining the founding of America with women & Black people at the table and the Catholic Church headed by Black women and Native Americans is a proper revision of history the way it should have been. The reaction to #WokeGemini says more about society than the tool itself; that’s what fascinates me about AI: its reflections. Right-wing columnists fear the anti-white machine programmed by commisars of what we used to call political correctness. And the extremist Murdoch media and pols h ..read more

I am coming to a conclusion I have avoided for my last three decades working on the internet and news: It may finally be time to give up on old journalism and its legacy industry.  I say this with no joy, no satisfaction at having tried to get newspapers and magazines to change, and much empathy for the journalists and others caught working in a dying sector and those who count on them. But the old news industry is gasping for air. I’m not suggesting performing euthenasia on what is left. Nor do I dance on the grave. In my time running a Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, now ending ..read more

I wrote an op-ed for NJ.com and the Star-Ledger in New Jersey proposing that the soon-empty Bell Labs should become a Museum and School of the Internet. Here, for those outside the Garden State, is the text: Bell Labs, the historic headwaters of so many inventions that now define our digital age, is closing in Murray Hill, its latest owners moving to more modern headquarters in New Brunswick. The Labs should be preserved as a historic site and more. I propose that Bell Labs be opened to the public as a museum and school of the internet. The internet would not be possible without the technol ..read more

Well, that was surreal. I testified in a hearing about AI and the future of journalism held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Here is my written testimony and here’s the Reader’s Digest version in my opening remarks: It was a privilege and honor to be invited to air my views on technology and the news. I went in knowing I had a role to play, as the odd man out. The other witnesses were lobbyists for the newspaper/magazine and broadcast industries and the CEO of a major magazine company. The staff knew I would present an alternative perspective. My fello ..read more

Here are are my written remarks for a hearing on AI and the future of journalism for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, on January 10, 2024. I have been a journalist for fifty years and a journalism professor for the last eighteen. History I would like to begin with three lessons on the history of news and copyright, which I learned researching my book, The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and its Lessons for the Age of the Internet (Bloomsbury, 2023): First, America’s 1790 Copyright Act covered only charts, maps, and books. The New York Times’ su ..read more

I began writing this as a report from a useful conference on AI that I just attended, where experts and representatives of concerned sectors of society had serious discussion about the risks, benefits, and governance of the technology. But, of course, I first must deal with the ludicrous news playing out now at leading AI generator, OpenAI. So let me begin by saying that in my view, the company is pure bullshit. Sam Altman’s contention that they are building “artificial general intelligence” or “artificial superintelligence”: Bullshit. Board members’ cult of effective altruism and AI doomeris ..read more

I’m honored that Germany’s Stern asked me to write about AI and journalism for a 75th anniversary edition. Here’s a version prior to final editing and trimming for print and translation. And I learned a new word: Kauderwelsch (“The variety of Romansch spoken in the Swiss town of Chur (Kauder) in canton Graubünden) means gibberish.  We have Gutenberg to blame. It is because of his invention, print, that society came to think of public discourse, creativity, and news as “content,” a commodity to fill the products we call publications or lately websites. Journalists believe that their val ..read more

The date sneaked up on me this year, attacking from behind. Every year on 9/11 I reflect, grateful that I survived the attack. This year, though, I find myself angry. Some of that might be my own loss: my father to COVID this year; my imminent unemployment. But I am angry on this 22nd anniversary at what has fallen since: at the authoritarianism that overtook this country and threatens the world, at racism and bigotry set loose, at the pandemic killing still, at my own field — journalism — failing to meet these challenges.  A generation has passed since 9/11/01 and what have we learned ..read more