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Warning: The whole 'AI will replace journalists' story misses a huge local angle
Our small town paper in Bend, Oregon, laid off its last two reporters last month. The headline everywhere was about AI writing tools, but the real story was a hedge fund that bought the paper five years ago and cut costs to nothing. They stopped covering city council meetings entirely about 18 months ago. Now we have a city budget vote next week and nobody has explained the details. Has anyone else seen a 'tech' story that's really about old-fashioned corporate stripping?
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the_viola22d ago
So we're supposed to be scared of robot writers when the real problem is vampire capitalists? I mean, they sucked the paper dry and left the shell for AI to take the blame. Classic move, really. Sell the furniture, fire the staff, and then point at the new tech as the reason the house is empty. It's a pretty good trick if you don't want people looking at who actually took the money and ran.
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shanec6122d ago
Ugh, that's so real. My cousin's town paper got bought by some out-of-state group and now it's just ads and old AP wire copy. They don't even list high school sports scores anymore.
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cole_murphy22d ago
Yeah, it's the same old story with new tech as a scapegoat. They strip the place for parts, then act like the empty building is some new, futuristic problem. Our local paper got hollowed out years before AI was even a thing, just a bunch of reprinted press releases now. The money left town a long time ago.
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