Recently, Angela Fu from Poynter Online reported a significant story making waves in media circles. The opening line captured attention: “Nota, an artificial intelligence company serving clients such as The Boston Globe and the Institute for Nonprofit News, is shutting down its network of local news sites after discovering multiple instances of plagiarism.”
Fu’s article is a must-read. It summarizes how the AI tool was initially intended to extract press releases and official data but inadvertently began copying news content as well. Poynter uncovered over 70 instances of articles dating back to October that included reporting, writing, and photography from local journalists without the necessary attribution. Alarmingly, some of this reproduced material originated from outlets that are also clients of Nota.
Earlier today, several reputable sources circulated a memo that was sent to the Globe’s newsroom, reassuring journalists that their paper was not involved in the specific experiment in question and instructing them to cease using Nota’s services.
Below is the text of that email, which originated from significant figures such as editor Brian McGrory; Shira Center, vice president for innovation and strategic initiatives; Cynthia Needham, deputy managing editor for innovation and strategy; Matt Karolian, vice president of platforms and AI; and Heather Ciras, deputy managing editor for audience.
Poynter published a report yesterday regarding Nota, an AI tool leveraged by the Globe and numerous newsrooms nationwide. The report highlighted that an experiment with AI-driven hyperlocal news led to the production of blatantly plagiarized content from other local news organizations.
I want to clarify that the Globe was not part of this experiment, which focused on small counties in other states. Our collaboration with Nota has strictly revolved around SEO, headline suggestions, related metadata, and social platform insights for Globe stories. Importantly, our agreement with Nota expressly prohibits the use of our journalism to train its AI model.
Nevertheless, the events described do not align with our values, and we are requesting everyone to discontinue the use of this product while we await Nota’s termination of the service and the conclusion of our contract. We are actively exploring other robust alternatives for this work.
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