“We will continue pushing back on ill-planned attempts to force A.I. into our newsrooms and onto our readers, who deserve quality, human-led journalism…”
– Philip Eil, freelance journalist
Why would a newspaper company partner with Palantir, the notorious tech company co-founded by Peter Thiel?
Well, according to USA Today Co.’s CEO Mike Reed, who spoke on a call with investors last week, it’s an opportunity to “strengthen how we collect, connect and activate audience data to drive more effective and faster monetization across our platform.”
The partnership was first reported by Nieman Lab, which noted that USA Today Co. – formerly Gannett – owns more than 200 local newspapers in the US. Among them is the Providence Journal.
As someone who’s followed the Journal closely for a long time, I was alarmed by this news.
I know that the Journal’s trajectory since it was first sold to corporate owners in 1997 hasn’t been pretty. There have been seemingly never-ending layoffs, buyouts, and retirements. There has been a steady shrinking of the physical paper – a visual decline that brings to mind a person wasting away from a severe illness. There was the time the Journal’s early corporate owner – the Belo Corporation, owner of the Dallas Morning News – torched a bunch of money on a doomed gadget called the “CueCat.” (Read more about that at a website called “The Museum of Failure.”) There was the 2025 shutdown of the paper’s Providence printing facility, which eliminated 136 jobs.
But a Journal owner partnering with a company that has been blasted for its human rights record by Amnesty International? With a company co-founded by a guy – Peter Thiel – who has said: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”? With a company that, as Nieman Lab noted, has “been the subject of controversy in recent months for providing its technology to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Israeli military”?
This was a new level of bad.
And I was not alone in that response.
On Monday, the NewsGuild, the union representing workers at various USA Today Co. papers, released a statement demanding that their employer end its partnership with Palantir. The full statement reads:
We, USA TODAY CO. (formerly Gannett) workers represented by The NewsGuild-CWA, were shocked to learn that our company has partnered with Palantir. While USA TODAY CO. CEO Mike Reed championed this partnership as a way to drive revenue, we believe it threatens to undermine trust in our news outlets and raises serious questions about the data security of our readers.
We have significant ethical issues with Palantir, whose artificial intelligence (AI) software has been used to advance widespread surveillance and power immigration crackdowns. Not only does partnering with Palantir, a major player in the news we cover, create an inherent conflict of interest, but it fails the journalists who have been assaulted and falsely arrested while covering immigration enforcement actions and protests.
USA TODAY CO. has provided minimal details about this partnership and the parameters of its agreement with Palantir. We have serious concerns and questions about how readers’ personal information and data will be used under this partnership and how their data would be protected. Without answers, how can journalists encourage readers to subscribe to our news outlets?
Our commitment to upholding First Amendment principles to serve the democratic process is in direct contrast with a company like Palantir, whose cofounder, Peter Thiel, once said freedom and democracy were not compatible, and whose technologies have been tied to human rights abuses and surveillance activities.
Technologists and even former employees have warned that it’s not far-fetched to imagine a future where Palantir’s AI technology is used to surveil American citizens and target dissidents. And throughout history, journalists are often the first to be targeted.
These concerns should be reason enough for USA TODAY CO. to steer clear. We should be acting with the kind of responsibility and skepticism that the nation’s largest network of journalists should exhibit.
This partnership with Palantir arrives as USA TODAY CO. executives dive headfirst into AI without sufficient regard for workers or the public after decimating newsrooms across the country.
We will continue pushing back on ill-planned attempts to force AI into our newsrooms and onto our readers, who deserve quality, human-led journalism. We will advocate for the responsible use of new technologies when it emboldens our journalists and their work instead of shamelessly promoting AI to support profit-driven corporate edicts.
We will continue fighting for transparency and quality journalism for our readers without compromising their trust.
We call on USA TODAY CO. to immediately end its partnership with Palantir.
The statement was signed by 31 regional chapters of the NewsGuild, from the Akron Beacon Journal Newspaper Guild to the Washington-Baltimore News Guild. Among them was the Providence Newspaper Guild, which represents workers at three local USA Today Co.-owned papers: the Journal, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and the Brockton [MA] Enterprise.
When I reached out to the PNG for comment, the chapter’s president, Kate Levesque, confirmed that the PNG stands with the News Guild’s statement. “We stand together with our fellow unions and support the position expressed in that statement,” she said.
As for Journal management, I reached out to the paper’s executive editor, Lynne Sullivan, for comment. (I noted in my email that I suspected the Palantir decision was made without her input, and that I viewed the Journal as a victim or a hostage in this whole situation.)
Sullivan declined to comment and referred me to USA Today Co.’s PR & Corporate Communications team. In response to my query, USA Today Co.’s PR people sent me the following statement:
This initiative supports our broader strategy to strengthen audience relationships and create greater value across our business. In this work with Palantir, we’re leveraging AI to create a unified intelligence layer to serve our expansive audience better, deepen engagement, and drive growth across subscriptions, advertising, and e-commerce.
Our editorial decisions remain independent and are guided by our longstanding journalistic standards and ethics policies.
Please note, USA TODAY Co. complies with applicable data protection and privacy laws and maintains strong standards for data security and governance. We require this of our vendors and partners as well, reflecting our belief that safeguarding protected personal information is essential to our business and the audiences we serve.
Sharing a quote below addressing the open letter from the Guild/unionized employees which you can attribute to Amy Garrard, Vice President of Labor Relations, USA TODAY Co.:
“We respect that employees have a range of perspectives. Our agreement with Palantir is a business decision focused on strengthening how we connect and better serve audiences, advertisers, and subscribers. Our data remains protected under our existing privacy commitments, contractual safeguards, and applicable laws. As always, our journalism remains fully independent.”
In response, I sent a follow-up question: “Will Palantir be collecting info or data on Providence Journal readers or subscribers?”
The response from USA Today’s PR & Corporate Communications team was “No. That is not the nature of our work with Palantir.”
Reprinted with permission from the Steve Ahlquist Substack, steveahlquist.substack.com