Editorial independence

Replacing news editors with AI is a worry for misinformation, bias and accountability

Germany's best-selling newspaper, Bild, is reportedly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to replace certain editorial roles, in an effort to cut costs.  Read more

At 91, Robert Gottlieb is perhaps the most acclaimed book editor of his time. He started out in 1955 and has been working in publishing ever since - serving as editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker. The list of authors he's edited include Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, John le Carré, Katharine Graham, Bill Clinton, Nora Ephron and Michael Crichton.

Nan Talese, arbiter of her own imprint at Knopf Doubleday, loves books. And when she's enthusiastic about one, she will publish it, despite an almost unfavorable profit and loss analysis. Her sweet but persistent approach to almost everything is rooted in her Texan heritage and her New York upbringing, a fierce combination that grants her an uncompromising approach to the written word.  Read more

Here is the scenario: a society is considering a publishing services deal with Elsevier, Wiley, whomever. The society, having heard from the librarians at their institutions that the people who work for commercial publishers are Certifiably Bad Guys, is fearful that the large publishers will try to take over editorial control.  Read more