Historic Newspaper Uses Janky AI Newscasters Instead of Human Journalists
Full article270 words · extracted from 404media.co · click to collapse
A company that owns several newspapers in Hawaii is using AI-generated newscasters to create video news segments against the wishes of its unionized journalists, who say the newspaper’s owners are replacing journalists with AI and described the practice as “digital colonialism.”
Readers visiting the YouTube and Instagram accounts for The Garden Island, Kauai’s only daily newspaper, are currently greeted by James and Rose, a pair of AI-generated newscasters that squawk out local news coverage in stilted robotic voices. The videos are made with Caledo, an Israeli startup that was founded in 2023 with the express goal of turning written news pieces into digital broadcast news.
The Garden Island, which began publishing in 1902, doesn’t have unionized staff members but is owned by Oahu Publications (OPI). Some of OPI’s publications are unionized—including the larger Honolulu Star-Advertiser, whose union members saw a demonstration of Caledo before the first AI-generated Garden Island news segments were published, they told 404 Media.
“We can confirm that two union members of the news team were given a demonstration of the Caledo format along with staff from other departments. The journalists, to put it lightly, raised several concerns and advised against using AI avatars. Obviously, management decided to move forward,” the union told 404 Media in a written statement.
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Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://www.404media.co/historic-newspaper-uses-janky-ai-newscasters-instead-of-human-journalists/