"News organizations will face an AI reckoning in 2026 and a choice: They can keep blocking AI crawlers, suing AI companies, and lobbying for protectionist AI legislation - all the while making themselves invisible to the publics they serve on the next medium that matters - or they can figure out how to play along. Unsurprisingly, I hold a number of likely unpopular opinions on the matter:"
"Journalists must address their civic, professional, even moral obligation to provide news, reporting, and information via AI. For - like it or not - AI is where more and more people will go for information. It is clear that competitors for attention - marketing and misinformation - are rushing to be included in the training and output of large language models. This study finds that "reputable sites forbid an average of 15.5 AI user agents, while misinformation sites prohibit fewer than one.""
News organizations confront a pivotal choice in 2026: block AI crawlers and lobby against AI, or adapt and participate in AI distribution. Journalists have a civic and professional obligation to provide reporting and information through AI because audiences increasingly seek information via AI interfaces. Marketing and misinformation actors are actively integrating into AI training and outputs, while reputable sites often block many AI agents. Major models will rely more on synthetic data and world models, reducing dependence on news content. Legal challenges to training appear tenuous given fair use and recent decisions. Blocking AI risks surrendering informational control to nonjournalistic actors.
Read at Nieman Lab
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