California newsroom replaces dozens of laid-off reporters with AI writers

McClatchy Media is cutting journalists at the several California newspapers while building a new artificial intelligence operation that could dramatically change what its newsrooms produce.The newspaper giant laid off dozens of reporters nationwide last week, then added three editors to its AI-powered Content Innovation Lab.The company’s AI strategy was already being pushed internally months before the latest cuts.During a contentious May virtual town hall, CEO Tony Hunter delivered a blunt pitch for the company’s future.“We have a company-wide effort to agentify the entire enterprise,”  Hunter said in a recording obtained by Straight Arrow News. That effort includes a chatbot that repackages human-written stories at different lengths for different audiences, complete with reporters’ bylines.McClatchy executives have described the Content Innovation Lab as a “big experiment” and claim AI can help them produce and scale more content while experimenting with new audiences, even as the number of traditional newsroom employees is reduced.But the strategy is colliding with a painful reality in California, where some of the company’s most recognizable newsrooms have already been gutted by layoffs.The Fresno Bee lost seven reporters, while The Sacramento Bee lost at least 10 journalists.

The Modesto Bee was also hit, with cuts affecting not only reporters but photographers and videographers.Kathleen Quinn, a civics and democracy reporter for The Modesto Bee, announced that she had been laid off after two years with the company.“To say I’m extremely disappointed in McClatchy Media doesn’t really scratch the surface of what I feel knowing how many incredibly talented people were laid off today in some of the most critical positions in our industry,” she wrote.“Please hire these folks.”Sacramento Bee investigative reporter Ariane Lange described the cuts as “the bloodiest round of layoffs in quite some time at McClatchy.”The losses come as ...