I start my newsletter every week with a cheery “Good morning, neighbors!” for a reason.
First, I’m a transplanted Midwesterner and I can’t help but be friendly. And, second, it’s true – all of The Modesto Focus reporters live, work and play right here in the Valley.
Local journalists like us are your neighbors. That’s part of what makes local reporting so special. Every single story we publish is written by humans who care deeply about the community because they are also part of that same community.
I especially want to emphasize the “written by humans” part. In this age of rampant, often aggressive, AI integration, The Modesto Focus will only ever publish stories reported, written and edited by us – your friendly neighborhood local reporters. Period.
This stands in contrast to the direction that some other major media companies, many in our own backyards, are taking with AI. McClatchy Media, the owner of The Modesto, Fresno and Sacramento Bees, has very publicly embraced, some might say pushed, AI to write and publish its articles.
Since April, the company (which was bought by the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management in 2020) has gone all in on publishing AI-generated content on its news sites. They even created their own AI client specifically for the task of rewriting reporter work and repackaging it to readers.
In Modesto, since April 18, I counted 17 AI-generated stories with the byline “Edited by Carlos Virgen based on original reporting by Bee journalists and summarized using AI.” This means they’ve plugged in already published work to their program, which then spits out a news summary and an editor looks at it before republishing. In other words, these “stories” are nothing new and represent simply reconstituted content.
I don’t blame the journalists at The Modesto Bee for this. (And, across McClatchy, workers have protested the new policy.) These reporters are doing good and essential work. But they are part of a massive media organization with 30 newsrooms across the country and just following orders from above.
But I believe it’s a mistake. Quantity over quality isn’t how you win back readerships or build trust. Readers don’t want regurgitated news, they want original, comprehensive and unique news. They want to feel connected to their news, and the people who deliver it to them.
At The Modesto Focus and across the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative, we are committed to only publishing work written by our local reporters. We are also in the process of finalizing our organization’s official AI policy, which will reflect that.
Now, don’t get us wrong, we aren’t Luddites. We do think there are some genuine and important uses for AI in the reporting process. Systems can help scan endless paperwork and documentation. Machines can automate routine research duties. We see it as potentially another tool that journalists can use, guided like all other tools by human judgment, verification and accountability. So we aren’t against all AI, per se. (Though, can we talk about its environmental impacts because, low whistle.)
We just believe the real work of journalism is essentially human. It’s connecting with people, questioning them, challenging them, spotlighting them, empathizing with them.
As the kids today say, a robot could never.
We want to thank each of you, our neighbors, for supporting us in this audacious endeavor since the launch of our independent, nonprofit newsroom last summer. We’re not perfect, we’ll make mistakes – but we’ll always be human.
Marijke Rowland is the editor of The Modesto Focus, a project of the nonprofit Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. Contact her at marijke@themodestofocus.org.
