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News Corp boss defends $376m AI deal amid looming job cuts
By Calum Jaspan and Olivia Ireland
The Australian boss of News Corp has urged the prime minister to lobby the US for the break-up of tech giants, while defending the company’s commercial deals with a major artificial intelligence firm amid preparations for further redundancies.
Referring to the tech platforms as “unavoidable trading partners”, Michael Miller rebuked the likes of Facebook, X and TikTok for refusing to subscribe to Australian rules or values, pushing for the government to implement legislation to curb the platforms and force them to attain a “social licence” to operate locally.
News Corp’s Michael Miller addressing the National Press Club on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Google, meanwhile, which recently renewed its commercial deal with News Corp, largely avoided Miller’s reproval.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should lobby for the break-up of these companies due to the national security threats, Miller said during the questions section of an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday.
“I think he’s [Albanese] got the perfect entrée now that there’s a coalition of senators in the US that are raising this,” Miller said. “Our parliamentarians should raise it with other parliamentarians. I know none of them are, but I think if the prime minister has that opportunity, he should take it.”
The executive chair of News Corp Australasia addressed a room of journalists in Canberra, urging the government to force Meta to renegotiate new commercial deals with Australian publishers after it walked away in March.
Miller went on to defend the company’s reporting on the ABC, and coverage during the Voice to parliament referendum and of high-profile women and transgender issues, insisting none of its journalism is intended to cause harm or bully.
Despite calls for the expulsion of Meta and its four social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads) from Australia, Miller defended News Corp’s recent content deal with artificial intelligence firm OpenAI.
The deal, valued at more than $US250 million ($376 million), took place days before the company made a number of senior editors and managers redundant. There are expectations more cuts will hit its wider team of Australian journalists in the coming week as it aims to find savings of up to $65 million. Miller insisted speculation of more than 100 jobs cuts was just that.
“In terms of journalists, we will always try to minimise first frontline journalists, those that are on the ground … unfortunately we are going through, as an industry, a lot of change, and we’re looking to right size the period into the advertising downturn to be in a position for growth coming out,” he said.
“There’s no doubt those AI companies need media companies and if the partnership is right, then I don’t think media companies should be close-minded to working with AI companies either.
“I think as media companies using AI, it’s a tool. We’re not going to see journalists replaced by AI. But if it allows us to do a better job, we’ve mentioned fact checking, we talked about speed to publish with greater accuracy … those are the areas where journalists can be doing a better job by using the technology available to us.”
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