Newsrooms selling archives
Some news organizations are licensing their archives to train AI models, with News Corp signing a reported $150 million deal with Meta to let its outlets' content be used for model training (x.com). This trend—selling archival content to tech giants—was highlighted in recent social reporting as an emerging revenue approach for cash‑strapped newsrooms (x.com).
News publishers are turning old clips into a new product: access to their archives for artificial intelligence training. In March 2026, News Corp struck a multiyear deal letting Meta use content from outlets including The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. (engadget.com) The Wall Street Journal reported the Meta agreement is worth up to $50 million a year for at least three years, or as much as $150 million in total. The deal covers News Corp content from the United States and the United Kingdom for chatbot answers and model training. (wsj.com) News Corp had already signed a separate multiyear pact with OpenAI on May 22, 2024. In that agreement, OpenAI got permission to use current and archived material from mastheads including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Australian. (newscorp.com) The company did not disclose the OpenAI price, but News Corp’s own Wall Street Journal reported in May 2024 that the package was worth more than $250 million over five years, including cash and credits to use OpenAI technology. (techxplore.com) News Corp is not alone. The Associated Press signed an archive-sharing deal with OpenAI in July 2023, Axel Springer announced a global partnership in December 2023, and the Financial Times, Le Monde, Prisa Media, Vox Media, and The Atlantic all announced OpenAI partnerships in 2024. (ap.org) (openai.com 1) (openai.com 2) (openai.com 3) (voxmedia.com) (theatlantic.com) These agreements usually do two things at once. They let artificial intelligence companies train models or answer questions with licensed reporting, and they give publishers cash plus access to tools they hope can help with search, product development, advertising, or newsroom workflows. (openai.com 1) (openai.com 2) (voxmedia.com) The deals are landing as many news companies are still trying to replace lost print revenue and weaker digital ad growth. News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said in 2024 that the industry had been “skewered” by digital platforms and that artificial intelligence companies should pay for reliable journalism rather than scrape it for free. (finance.yahoo.com) Not every publisher is taking the licensing route. The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023, alleging copyright infringement over the use of its journalism in training and outputs, and the Center for Investigative Reporting filed a similar suit in June 2024. (cnbc.com) (revealnews.org) That split has turned archives into both a bargaining chip and a legal boundary. For publishers willing to sign, decades of reported stories now sit on the balance sheet not just as history, but as training data. (axios.com)
