CWA News Workers Rail Against Palantir Partnership

Last week, members of The NewsGuild-CWA from over two dozen Locals, signed a joint statement condemning USA Today Co.’s (formerly Gannett) partnership with data analytics company Palantir Technologies. In the statement, members express concern that the partnership “threatens to undermine trust in our news outlets and raises serious questions about the data security of our readers.”

NewsGuild members were blindsided by the announcement of the partnership, which came from USA Today Co. CEO Mike Reed during the company’s second-quarter earnings call. Reed informed investors that the company would be using Palantir’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools to gather and analyze data from readers.

Also in their statement, members asserted, “We will continue pushing back on ill-planned attempts to force AI into our newsrooms and onto our readers, who deserve quality, human-led journalism. We will advocate for the responsible use of new technologies when it emboldens our journalists and their work, instead of shamelessly promoting AI to support profit-driven corporate edicts.”

Click here to read the full statement from The NewsGuild-CWA.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.