Guardian signs deal with OpenAI | Top 50 US news sites | Biggest paywalled outlets

Plus Thomson Reuters wins an AI copyright victory, the BBC details extent of AI accuracy issues and research finds people are more likely to subscribe when they get less paywalled information for free

Feb 14, 2025

Hello and happy Friday!

Breaking news this morning: The Guardian has become the latest news publisher to sign a content licensing deal with OpenAI. The agreement gives the publisher access to ChatGPT tools in-house and will help make sure The Guardian is credited correctly — and paid — for its work by the AI giant.

Meanwhile this week there’s been some early news in the ongoing legal war between news publishers and AI companies: a US circuit judge has ruled that a rival business infringed the copyright of Thomson Reuters by taking information it held about court cases for a law-focused search engine.

Pertinently, US Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas said that while judicial opinions can’t be copyrighted, staff at Thomson Reuters’ legal information provider Westlaw had made editorial judgements over what to include and exclude from its summaries, in the process creating a copyrightable work. Feeding the memos into the search engine’s training data did not fall under US fair use provisions.

Incidentally I have, at last, discovered a way that AI can actually be useful to me: after years paddling in place using Duolingo (current streak: 1,130 days), I’ve been using ChatGPT to have conversations in Italian. But while helpful for sharpening my proficiency, I shan’t be trusting any of the specifics it tells me about recent reporting in La Repubblica — a BBC study this week found that generative AI chatbots routinely mischaracterise reporting.

Also this week we have the latest Similarweb data on the most-visited news sites in the US and in the world in January. Two big takeaways for me in last month’s data:

Despite readers’ apparent annoyance at The Los Angeles Times under proprietor Patrick Soon-Shiong, people turn to the news when they need it. Despite flagging traffic in recent months, the LA Times’ visits doubled in January amid the city’s historic wildfires.
Similarly, after a pullback in December following the presidential election, there are early indications that Donald Trump’s turbulent approach to governance is once again leaving news-weary Americans with little choice but to tune back into current affairs.

Separately, Charlotte Tobitt has gone to great effort to compile the newest edition of Press Gazette’s 100k Club, our ranking of the Anglosphere news outlets with the most digital subscriptions. The whole list is now a pleasing 50 publishers long, reflecting the ongoing return to direct paid relationships across the news industry.

And as a kicker, Charlotte has also digested a new study finding that readers are more likely to pay for access past a paywall if they’re presented with less information. That article standfirst could be costing you money!

Have a great weekend.

Bron

Press Gazette is returning to New York on 13 March for our third Media Strategy Network event.

This FREE event focuses around several confidential round-table discussions, where you get the chance to share your successes (and failures) with industry peers.

We've also already confirmed the following speakers: Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel, Guardian North America chief advertising officer Sara Badler and Wall Street Journal chief revenue officer Josh Stinchcomb.

We will even give you lunch and buy you a drink afterwards.

If you are in a senior leadership position at a publisher and feel this event could be useful please click on this link to find out more and register your interest.

Guardian signs licensing deal with OpenAI

Thomson Reuters building in New York. Picture: Shutterstock/sadore_ph

Guardian signs licensing deal with ChatGPT owner OpenAI

“Under the partnership, Guardian reporting and archive journalism will be available as a news source within ChatGPT, alongside the publication of attributed short summaries and article extracts.”

Read more

Thomson Reuters wins ‘fair use’ AI copyright ruling

“A block of raw marble, like a judicial opinion, is not copyrightable. Yet a sculptor creates a sculpture by choosing what to cut away and what to leave in place. That sculpture is copyrightable.”

Read more

Most generative AI responses based on news content contain inaccuracies

The vast majority of responses based on BBC journalism were found to have at least some accuracy issues.

Read more

Top 50 news websites in the US: Trump and wildfires spur traffic increases

Overall only nine websites posted month-on-month traffic declines in January.

Read more

Top 50 news websites in the world: India.com reports fastest year-on-year growth

Overall there are 11 India-based sites in the top 50 compared with nine UK-based websites and 24 US-based ones.

Read more

100k Club: 2025 ranking of world’s biggest news publishers by digital subscribers

Substack’s paying subscribers have doubled in the past two years, leading it to overtake The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Gannett to become the second-biggest publisher by digital subscriptions – albeit spread across multiple different publications on its platform.

Read more

Giving readers less can lead to more subscribers, new research

The study by the Department of Media and Communication at LMU Munich found that displaying a standfirst between a headline and text on an otherwise locked paywalled article decreased the odds of someone hitting subscribe by 86.3%.

Read more

Guardian signs deal with OpenAI | Top 50 US news sites | Biggest paywalled outlets

Plus Thomson Reuters wins an AI copyright victory, the BBC details extent of AI accuracy issues and research finds people are more likely to subscribe when they get less paywalled information for free

Thomson Reuters building in New York. Picture: Shutterstock/sadore_ph

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