New York Passes First-of-its-kind Bill to Protect Journalism from AI
The NY Fair News Act Requires Disclosures on Content Generated by AI
This week, the New York Legislature passed the NY FAIR News Act, setting the standard for how states can and should safeguard the integrity of our headlines. The bill, led by Senator Patricia Fahy and Assemblymember Nily Rozic, mandates that media organizations in New York include clear disclaimers on content substantially or entirely generated by AI. As newsrooms continue to adopt AI policies that dilute the accuracy and the humanity of journalism, this legislation is a groundbreaking response to AI’s intrusion into our field.
“AI will never be able to do the work journalists are required to do to accurately report and contextualize local and national news,” said Tom Fontana, President of the Writers Guild of America East, in a press release. “We hope Governor Hochul will quickly sign this bill into law to mitigate one of the risks posed by AI and place value on the vital work done every day by newsroom workers.”
Corporate and legacy media have brought AI into their editorial spaces in ways that have made coverage less dependable and less centered on the communities they serve. Generative AI is designed to answer a prompt, not to create coverage. So if you insert sources, information, and a headline, you will get a story. But that story will be limited to the constraints of the prompt, and will automatically seek to fulfill your request instead of challenging your point of view, as journalism is intended to do.
Readers deserve to know when content has not been touched by human hands. Outlets like the LA Times, the Miami Herald, and US Weekly have published articles written by AI, without disclosing that artificial authorship. These AI-generated articles came from AdVon, a content creation company that contributed coverage to several high-profile outlets. The company is designed to mass produce low-quality content, for media outlets, ad agencies, and more. The articles were drafted by bylines that don’t exist, behind headshots that were also AI-generated.
Real people write real news. The NY FAIR News Act is a powerful step towards a press that is safeguarded from deepfake writers who are violently replacing the art of journalism. Audiences see it too. The majority of Americans overwhelmingly indicate they believe that AI will negatively impact journalism. The need for a human behind a headline is not going away anytime soon.
“There will always be a market for verified accurate information, which requires humans,” Tobias Rose-Stockwell said in an interview with the Index on Censorship. “So truthful journalism isn’t going away, but it’s going to be disrupted by AI, which can now generate content in real time. This will lead to more viral falsehoods, confusion and chaos in our information ecosystem.”
This legislation in New York is a simple and easily replicable standard for regulating the dangerous nature of AI. The bill had bipartisan support and benefits readers, journalists, and anyone who cares about limiting misinformation. There is no reason that every state should not adopt similar protections. This is how we create stronger futures for journalism, and a more trustworthy relationship between reader and writer.