When everything can be AI

In the past few years, the world has become completely AI-saturated. It’s happened quickly, awkwardly and haphazardly, with very little in the way of AI literacy to help you understand what you’re seeing.

One person might say the AI revolution is empowering people in profound ways; another might say AI is eroding what little trust remains in institutions. They’d both be right.

The tools are incredible — and the end result is incredibly confusing. Human media companies are competing with AI-generated everything. Publishers are grappling with a “deluge” of AI-made books. Film festivals are debating what to do with AI-generated movies. News outlets are rethinking their relationships with search engines (now “answer engines”) and trying to serve up ads to bots.

As Le Monde’s Aude Dassonville wrote this week, AI is “an earthquake” for the media, “profoundly shaking journalistic practices and relationships with readers, along with the economic models of newspapers, magazines, television channels and news websites, all of which have already been battered by years of crisis.”

The impacts on the broader media environment are equally immense. AI-generated clips “have taken this election season by storm.” Facebook and TikTok feeds have been taken over by AI slop. Hollywood animation studios are hiring “slop janitors.” AI detection companies are raising millions.

Sometimes it’s still obvious to the naked eye when something is artificial. President Trump rather amusingly gave himself an AI makeover to look younger the other day. I get it, Mr. President — I’ve airbrushed away a few wrinkles myself.

But the stakes are a lot higher when, say, Google Earth lets users create deepfake images of nonexistent riots. Google pulled the feature earlier this month “after users noted there were no safeguards to prevent content that could be harmful.”

All of this was on my mind after reading this outstanding story by WIRED’s Kate Knibbs titled “Oh Lord, AI Reporters Are Actually Breaking Big News.”

Knibbs conveys how an AI newsroom called RuntimeWire “beat mainstream journalists — including WIRED — to a story about OpenAI and hacking.”

RuntimeWire is operated by Ryan Merket, who was camping in Big Bend National Park last week when his “synthetic team” turned a conference livestream transcript into a story before the human competition. “I put out over 80 articles that week,” Merket told Knibbs, by managing the site through iMessage.

You can check out the site for yourself here. The limitations of an “AI newsroom” are obvious — it’s only able to generate content about what’s already known and online. It can’t go out and gather new information or assess a source’s accuracy. But as Knibbs wrote, this is “just the beginning.”

>> Axios CEO Jim VandeHei’s question in this CJR story about his local news ambitions: “Could we use AI to basically automate everything you need in a local market other than the journalist and the journalism itself?” (CJR)

>> Corbin Bolies tuned in to the “Mirage News Network,” a “24-hour newscast where AI-generated news anchors cover real stories.” His question: “Who wants this?” (Variety)

>> After using AI to pen a “not so bad” novel, David Corn asks: “What does this tell us about the future of writing?” (Mother Jones)

>> Ben Sherwood asks: “Is ‘Human-Made’ the next luxury label?” (Fast Company)

>> Callie Holtermann wonders about chatbots pushing us toward a “post-human internet,” asking, “How will all this affect the way we interact with one another?” (NYT Mag)

Simon & Schuster has shared some new #s testifying to the success of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s “Regime Change.” The publisher has ordered an eighth printing of the book, “which will bring the number of hardcover copies to over a half-million,” per a spokesperson.

Already, it’s the best-selling nonfiction book of 2026, with more than 600,000 copies sold across hardcover, ebook and audio formats. And it just notched its seventh week at the top of the NYT bestseller list…

>> Betsy Klein says “it’s become Washington’s hottest new parlor game: Who will be Karoline Leavitt’s successor?” (CNN)

>> Alan Feuer and Ernesto Londoño document how the Trump administration probed left-leaning groups during the Minnesota immigration crackdown, “crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent,” raising obvious First Amendment concerns. (NYT)

>> Margaret Sullivan urges readers to “get outraged, and active, about the Trump-toadying FCC.” (American Crisis)

>> Dan Froomkin calls for “a moratorium on ‘Trump says’ headlines.” (Press Watch)

Charter has received the final approval it needs to buy Cox Communications “after making concessions to California regulators, including a commitment to provide affordable internet plans for low-income households,” the WSJ’s Patience Haggin reports. The deal will take effect next week, creating “the nation’s largest internet and video provider by subscriber base,” and Charter’s Spectrum brand will be rolled out in Cox markets.

“To be re-watching ‘Succession’ amid the ongoing battle over Paramount’s $110 billion bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery is to experience, once again, the sensation of life imitating art,” Don Aucoin writes for the Boston Globe.

Opinions are all over the place. In a WaPo op-ed, a GOP attorney general, Steve Marshall of Alabama, blasted his Democratic counterparts in other states, claiming they “appear to be so fixated on preserving CNN’s liberal bent that they would kneecap an effort to revitalize Hollywood.” Here’s his POV.

California AG Rob Bonta said yesterday, once more, that the lawsuit is not about CNN. Paramount and its allies “want to talk about everything except the actual case,” Bonta told Jessica Yellin.

Bonta also addressed the notion of a CNN editorial board, pointing out that such a board “would not address the issues raised in his lawsuit,” per Politico’s Daniel Miller.

In a legal filing last night, Paramount and the state AGs said they’re having “productive discussions” about finding someone to preside over a settlement conference. Such talks, nudged along by a neutral party, are a normal part of the pre-trial process, and not a sign of any imminent breakthrough.

So the arguments will continue. Vulture says “it’s hard to think of a CEO of a major entertainment conglomerate who has come across quite as desperate and panicked as David Ellison has,” while Reason says Bonta is on a misguided “crusade” that could “make California’s Hollywood exodus even worse…”

That’s the title of Paul Farhi’s piece for NY Mag about the escalating feud between Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and David Smith, the Baltimore Sun owner and Sinclair boss, whose outlets have published “withering” stories about Moore’s military record.

Farhi notes that “the Sun-Sinclair alliance in Maryland doesn’t seem to have dented Moore’s pursuit of a second term as governor,” but it could have 2028 “repercussions,” given that Moore is a serious Democratic primary contender. The kicker: “Moore’s staff suspects Smith is playing a long game against a political adversary who may someday claim a bigger role. And this is just the start.”

>> Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer had to issue an on-air correction yesterday “after the network was apparently hoodwinked by a phony quote attributed to Iran’s top Revolutionary Guard official.” (Mediaite)

>> “CBS Sunday Morning” is “inking a deal with the 92nd Street Y in New York on a series of live interviews.” (THR)

>> CNN’s FAST channel, CNN Headlines, “is finding success in its first year.” (TVNewser)

>> ABC and NBC combined will air 14% more NBA games this season, continuing a “long-term shift toward live sports… and away from traditional drama and comedies,” Dade Hayes writes. (Deadline)

>> Alex Cooper’s “beverage business is shutting down, demonstrating the challenges online creators often have in diversifying their work away from content,” Ashley Carman reports. (Bloomberg)

The Washington Post has been on a roll lately. Here’s another example of an impactful exclusive: Surveillance company Flock “said it will require stricter oversight after a Washington Post investigation found dozens of officers had misused its cameras to spy on their exes and romantic interests.” Drew Harwell, Douglas MacMillan and Aaron Schaffer’s investigation last week was titled “How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking.”

>> Just now: France’s top court struck down a law “that would have banned social media for children under the age of 15.” (CNN)

>> “Reddit shares jumped on the social media company’s inclusion in the S&P 500.” (CNBC)

>> “X is significantly expanding its open-source codebase” and “letting users see if they’ve been ‘shadowbanned.’” (TechCrunch)

>> Facebook is rolling out an AI-powered “Creator Studio” app that gives users “personalized tips to grow their audiences.” (TechCrunch)

>> Japanese news publishers are signing on to a new standard that “helps ordinary users verify who published or created a website” by using “cryptographic digital signature technology to create tamper-proof credentials for websites.” (NiemanLab)

>> Erik Wemple has a lovely read on how small independent weeklies like the Glens Falls Chronicle are surviving in a world of failing newspapers. “All it takes is owners who do absolutely everything,” he writes. (NYT)

>> Al Shaw has a maddening dive into just how “Kafkaesque” it has become to get the Trump administration to respond to a FOIA request. (ProPublica)

>> Ed Hammond shares some “confessions of a former star M&A reporter.” (FT)

>> Vincent Bevins makes a compelling argument that the so-called “vibe shift” to the right was, at least in part, an illusion created by Elon Musk’s leveraged buyout of Twitter. (North South Notes)

>> Lucas Shaw and Thomas Buckley say “this is the year we went back to the movies.” (Bloomberg)

>> Alex Weprin breaks down “how Lachlan Murdoch courted Roku to seal a $22 billion deal.” (THR)

>> Natasha Chen says “Disney parks and cruises saw their best growth in two years despite a travel slowdown. Here’s how they did it.” (CNN)

>> Eve Washington, Larry Buchanan and Claire Cain Miller have a fun breakdown of emoji usage by age group. 😭 was the most popular emoji last year. (NYT)

This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.