Lede AI, the company powering Gannett’s AI sports efforts, is supplying a number of local news publishers with the same service.
“I’m a helpful AI and automation tool,” reads the Auto News Desk’s bio. “I collect, analyze, and deliver information like high school sports scores and real estate transfers. My job is to help the newsroom deliver lots more useful information while freeing up their time to do important human-powered journalism.”
You know, it’s bad enough that they’re using these godawful services to the detriment of both writers and readers alike, but what I particularly dislike is that all these shitty LLMs are being humanized with biographies and cute little names. Like little cheery mascots celebrating the death of human-powered industries.
I wish that more people were talking about universal basic income in response to this.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Earlier this week a regional Ohioan newspaper called The Columbus Dispatch, owned by USA Today publisher Gannett, was met with a slew of online backlash when it was discovered that the paper was using a generative AI system to produce awful, bottom-of-the-barrel synopses of local high school sports matchups.
The AI-generated pieces embody the worst that AI-powered journalism has to offer: formulaic and repetitive short-form blurbs, riddled with nothingstuff descriptors — including the AI’s widely-mocked use of the phrase “a close encounter of the athletic kind,” which of course means absolutely nothing — and providing little in the way of quality information about the event, other than who played and what was the final score.
“A suffocating defense,” reads an automated blurb from Herald & Review, an Illinois-based paper owned by Gannett rival Lee Enterprises, “helped Franklin South County handle Bloomington North 4-0 on Aug. 30 in Indiana girls high schools soccer action.”
“A suffocating defense,” proclaims an excerpt from the Cox Enterprises-owned Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “helped Nahunta Brantley County handle Garden City Groves 30-0 in a Georgia high school football matchup.”
“A suffocating defense,” reads yet another local sports article from the Philadelphia-area outlet Vista.Today, whose owner, American Community Journals, operates several digital papers in the region, "helped Upper Dublin handle Kennett 21-0 in Pennsylvania high school football action on Aug.
American Community Journals, the Philly-area publisher, simply attributes its stories to the “ACJ Sports Staff,” with no mention of “artificial intelligence,” “AI,” or “automation” found anywhere on the page.
The original article contains 1,207 words, the summary contains 249 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
We need a footballer named Glorbius Globin
