RANGE Media's newsroom AI policy bans AI-written content, requires disclosure

RANGE Media, a worker-owned newsroom, published an AI policy last revised Sept. 29 that bars staff from using AI to write content or communicate with sources, to generate graphics, photos, podcasts or videos, or to serve as the sole editor of a piece, and forbids putting sensitive or confidential source information into large language models. The policy allows AI for transcription, data cleaning, comparing documents and drafting alt text, on condition that reporters listen back to quoted audio, validate data with the source and review alt text; it requires that disclosure of significant generative AI use name the tool and the extent of use, and says the newsroom treats “anything we upload to an outside service as something that could be stored, read or used to train AI.” RANGE says the policy was partly adapted from work by Trusting News, the Poynter Institute, AfroLA and Nucleo, and that no staff member will be required to use AI.