Business Insider union says ChatGPT is hurting its work

Andrew Deck of Nieman Lab writes about how the Business Insider union has complained about the parent company’s contract with ChatGPT.

Deck writes, “The Insider Union has taken issue with this part of the deal, in particular — the promise that ChatGPT will link out to Business Insider articles when it responds to user queries. According to the union, management had framed ChatGPT as a new potential source of referral traffic or, at minimum, a growing source of visibility for their reporting. The letter claims that despite these promises, ChatGPT currently is actually undermining their editorial work.

“‘We are…deeply worried that despite this partnership, OpenAI may be downplaying rather than elevating our works,’ reads the letter, signed by union steward and investigative reporter Katherine Long and other union members. ‘Repeated efforts by unit members have been unable to prompt ChatGPT to link directly to our scoops, even when explicitly instructed to do so.'”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.