The Centre Daily Times unionizes after backlash to McClatchy’s AI tool

The Centre Daily Times unionized on Friday, becoming the first newsroom under The NewsGuild-CWA to cite concerns about AI adoption as a primary driver for unionization. The decision followed backlash from reporters across McClatchy's network of 30 local newspapers regarding the company's Content Scaling Agent (CSA) tool. This AI tool repackages existing articles into short-form summaries for publication or video scripts. Reporters expressed dissatisfaction due to factual errors generated by the CSA and disagreements over how to label AI-produced content. Josh Moyer, a senior reporter at the Centre Daily Times, stated that a comment from McClatchy's chief of staff for local news, Kathy Vetter, during a March 17 internal meeting, indicated that non-unionized reporters' bylines would be used on CSA-produced stories. Moyer interpreted this as a directive from the company to form a union to maintain control over bylines. In response, all seven eligible editorial staff at the Centre Daily Times signed union authorization cards last month. McClatchy voluntarily recognized the union as a bargaining unit of The NewsGuild of Greater Philadelphia.