{"id":468583,"date":"2026-09-19T02:14:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T02:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468583\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T02:14:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T02:14:48","slug":"after-sacramento-bee-cuts-mcclatchy-ramps-up-its-ai-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468583\/","title":{"rendered":"After Sacramento Bee cuts, McClatchy ramps up its AI strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

McClatchy Media is cutting journalists<\/a> at several California newspapers while building a new artificial intelligence operation that could dramatically change<\/a> what its newsrooms produce.<\/p>\n

The newspaper giant laid off dozens of reporters<\/a> nationwide last week, then added three editors to its AI-powered Content Innovation Lab.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s AI strategy was already being pushed internally months before the latest cuts. <\/p>\n

The newspaper giant laid off dozens of reporters nationwide last week. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Tony Hunter, CEO of The McClatchy Company Sportsfile via Getty Images<\/p>\n

During a contentious May virtual town hall, CEO Tony Hunter delivered a blunt pitch for the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a company-wide effort to agentify the entire enterprise,\u201d \u00a0Hunter said in a recording obtained by Straight Arrow News<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That effort includes a chatbot that repackages human-written stories at different lengths for different audiences, complete with reporters\u2019 bylines.<\/p>\n

McClatchy executives have described the Content Innovation Lab as a \u201cbig experiment\u201d and claim AI can help them produce and scale more content while experimenting with new audiences, even as the number of traditional newsroom employees is reduced.<\/p>\n

But the strategy is colliding with a painful reality in California, where some of the company\u2019s most recognizable newsrooms have already been gutted by layoffs.<\/p>\n

McClatchy Company, the publisher of the Sacramento Bee. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Deepseek AI app icon appears alongside other AI chatbot applications. NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee lost seven reporters, while The Sacramento Bee lost at least 10 journalists. The Modesto Bee was also hit, with cuts affecting not only reporters but photographers and videographers.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Quinn, a civics and democracy reporter for The Modesto Bee, announced that she had been laid off after two years with the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say I\u2019m extremely disappointed in McClatchy Media doesn\u2019t really scratch the surface of what I feel knowing how many incredibly talented people were laid off today in some of the most critical positions in our industry,\u201d she wrote. \u201cPlease hire these folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sacramento Bee investigative reporter Ariane Lange described the cuts as \u201cthe bloodiest round of layoffs in quite some time at McClatchy.\u201d<\/p>\n

A man walks into the Sacramento Bee newspaper offices in Sacramento, California. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The losses come as California communities continue to face the same shrinking-newsroom problem affecting local papers nationwide: fewer reporters to cover city halls, schools, public agencies and other institutions.<\/p>\n

And McClatchy\u2019s own job listing makes clear that AI is central to the company\u2019s strategy. The listing says the \u201ccompany\u2019s future depends\u201d on embracing AI<\/a> and describes the innovation lab as its \u201cnext-generation approach to content\u201d designed to \u201cfuel experimentation and productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shift has sparked concern inside the company.<\/p>\n

A Kansas City Star reporter who survived the layoffs called the new innovation lab positions \u201cAI content farm jobs\u201d and accused McClatchy of prioritizing AI-generated lifestyle content over local coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McClatchy Media is cutting journalists at several California newspapers while building a new artificial intelligence operation that could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[7,37947,53870,6113,4182,121,123,122,3586],"class_list":["post-468583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-california","tag-chatbots","tag-journalists","tag-layoffs","tag-metro","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}