To Survive the AI Age, Publishers Are Finally Working Together

UK publishers are banding together to create standards for responsible AI—amid Anthropic’s stark reminders of its potential for harm.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how news publishers needed a different type of agreement with technology companies from the “partnership” schemes of the past. If journalism is to survive the dual and often identical pressures of political hostility and market disruption, it will need more protection from its infrastructure providers. This week, the extent to which journalists and news publishers can retain control over their work in an AI-driven environment took a step in what could be a positive direction: the formation of SPUR, or Standards for Publisher Usage Rights, an alliance of a handful of news publishers in the United Kingdom. The group includes the BBC, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, Sky News, and The Guardian, where I was a longtime employee and now serve as a nonexecutive director of Guardian Media Group.

Collegiality between news operators is a rare thing, particularly those that, like the Telegraph and Guardian, occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum and in all other respects might be regarded as competitors. But the collegiality to be found in resisting the worst, uncompensated excesses of AI overrides most existing differences. An open letter from the CEOs of the new alliance sets out ambitions that go beyond money (although that would be appreciated too) and into difficult questions that ultimately will ask as much of the news organizations as they will of the AI companies.