Journalists at three of Rupert Murdoch’s Australian mastheads have reported deep concern after training sessions for an in-house AI tool called “NewsGPT” .
Staffers on the Australian, the Courier Mail and the Daily Telegraph say the tool enables them to take on the persona of another writer, or to adopt a certain style, and NewsGPT will then generate a custom article.
Another tool, in which they adopt the persona of an editor to generate story leads or fresh angles, has also been used. But they say the training sessions have not explained what the technology will be used for.
Reporters have been told to expect another round of training using an AI tool called “Story Cutter” which will edit and produce copy, effectively removing or reducing the need for subeditors.
The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance said the AI programs were not only a threat to jobs but also threatened to undermine accountable journalism.
News Corp mastheads have certainly embraced the use of AI for illustrations recently; and in 2023 the company admitted producing 3,000 localised articles a week using generative artificial intelligence.
In March the company’s chief technology officer, Julian Delany, unveiled NewsGPT and described it as a powerful tool.
A News Corp Australia spokesperson told Weekly Beast: “As with many companies News Corp Australia is investigating how AI technologies can enhance our workplaces rather than replace jobs. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
The Guardian’s AI policy on the use of AI can be seen here.
Hostile reception for Origin
Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media showed its disdain for the NRL on Thursday with a front-page headline in the West Australian which failed to mention the words State of Origin or NRL.
“One bunch of east coasters beat another at rugby in Perth last night”, the dismissive headline said. The report of the match was relegated to page 36 of the sports pages, despite the match being played in Perth.
So why ignore a major event in your home town? Seven West Media has a $1.5bn deal with rival code the AFL, and the West Australian has actively campaigned against a new West Australian NRL team, the Bears.
While the newspaper claims the NRL is not popular in WA, the match recorded the highest-ever TV total audience for an Origin match in Perth, with 190,000 tuning in and 57,023 attending the match at Optus Stadium.
Seven West cuts
Journalists who work for Stokes at his newspaper empire had some bad news on Thursday in the form of an email with the dreaded words “operational review” and “redundancies” at West Australian Newspapers.
The company is offering voluntary redundancies across the West Australian, Perth Now, and the regional and community papers, and is asking for expressions of interest, by Friday 20 June.
On Tuesday, staff will be informed which roles will be made redundant and those folk will leave the same week. Editor-in-chief of WA Newspapers, Christopher Dore, has been approached for comment.
Breaking with tradition
On Monday, Australian Story will examine the Rachael Gunn story – but Raygun’s voice will not be heard after the breakdancer declined to participate.
While this is a departure for the award-winning program, which conventionally tells first-person stories, it’s not unheard of. Australian Story’s executive producer, Caitlin Shea, told Weekly Beast the format is broad enough “to examine ideas, issues, and cultural phenomena as well as the more personal profile”.
Shea points to episodes that examined Cliff Young’s race, the ABC TV show Race Around the World and true crime stories about Kathleen Folbigg, the Somerton Man mystery and Lyn Dawson.
The episode is not a profile but “examines the Raygun phenomenon to try to understand why it created such a storm and why Gunn remains such a polarising figure”.
Trump on mic
Murdoch’s New York Post launched a new podcast this month from the “legendary political columnist Miranda Devine”, an Australian journalist who relocated from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph to New York in 2019.
An unashamed right-wing cheerleader, Devine’s first guest was unsurprisingly Donald Trump. Videos of Devine laughing in a cosy chat with the president in the White House have been shared widely on social media.
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Among the scoops she claimed from the debut Pod Force One was Trump saying all rioters found to be burning the US flag should earn an “automatic” one-year jail sentence.
The chat started off with the following exchange.
Devine: “Mr President, thank you so much for doing this, our very first podcast, especially, I mean, I know how much you have on your plate. I mean, how do you juggle it all?
Trump: “I’ve got wars. I’ve got war and peace, and I have you. And I heard it was your first, so this is your first [podcast]. It’s gonna, it’s an honour to be on your show.”
When Trump falsely claimed Joe Biden allowed immigrants to come in to the US “from jails and prisons all over the world … [and] from mental institutions” Devine replied: “Why did he do that, it’s so destructive?”
ABC’s got it made
The ABC put out a media release this week announcing it was “delighted” Kyle Hugall had been appointed “Head of Made”.
There was little in the release to explain what this role at Made might entail or indeed what Made was, although Hugall was described as a creative leader who had worked in advertising.
The title reminded us of a letter written by senior presenters to the board in 2016 that condemned new layers of “preposterously named executives” which would have been at home in an episode of the ABC satire on bureaucracy, Utopia. Titles included “Head, Spoken” (Radio National manager) and “Classical Lead” (manager of Classic FM).
Non-state actor
Despite the failure of her “official” endorsement of Peter Dutton before the last election, Sharri Markson has issued her own symbolic sanctions on Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong.
“I’m going to start tonight by issuing my own symbolic sanctions against the two most damaging figures in the Albanese government, the prime minister and the foreign minister,” the Sky News Australia host said.
“I sanction Wong and Albanese for their antagonistic and extreme rhetoric which, over the past 20 months has only inflamed anti-Israel sentiment and contributed to the dangerous rise in antisemitism in our country.”
Distress and harm
An apparent suicide of a young man at a public place in the Adelaide CBD on Sunday has been extensively reported by the Advertiser, much to the dismay of the South Australian Police and the man’s family.
A spokesperson for the police told Weekly Beast that despite the police advising all media outlets on Sunday 15 June that the incident was “a mental health matter, and we will not be reporting on it any further”, some members of the media went ahead anyway and the family was “extremely distraught”.
The Advertiser published several stories in the newspaper and online, as well as a video. The content included multiple photographs of the location, the manner of suicide and the man’s private photographs.
The Australian Press Council has specific guidelines for the reporting of an individual suicide, which say it should only be done if it is in the public interest and the journalist has the consent of the family. The manner of suicide should not be disclosed. This individual was not a public figure.
Late on Thursday, with another article published in the Advertiser, the South Australian police took the unusual step “on behalf of [the] family” of asking the media to remove all the content.
We “formally request all media remove any articles, social media or any media relating to his death”, SA police said. “The reporting and media articles are causing further unnecessary distress and harm to the family and friends of [the deceased]. We trust that all media will adhere to this request on behalf of the family and actions its requests immediately.”
The editor of the Advertiser, Gemma Jones, and the editor of the Daily Mail, Felicity Hetherington, did not respond to requests for comment and the stories remain online at the time of publication.
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