Poynter is reporting that the preservation and accessibility of news archives are facing significant challenges from media consolidation and artificial intelligence. The Archival Producers Alliance, writing for Poynter, expressed concern that a potential Paramount-Warner merger could restrict access for journalists, filmmakers and historians to broadcast archives, which contain crucial raw footage and historical material. It said corporate consolidation has historically reduced and politicized access to such primary source materials, allowing owners to control who can use them and how. Separately, Nieman Lab has covered how more than 340 local news outlets are limiting the Internet Archive's access to their journalism due to concerns about AI scraping. The Internet Archive, which operates the Wayback Machine, warns that blocking preservation systems creates "holes in the public record of the web," potentially leading to future generations losing access to major parts of digital history. Poynter's "Today's News for Tomorrow" project, a collaboration with Internet Archive and IRE, aims to help local newsrooms preserve their born-digital archives. It recommends that newsrooms partner with community organizations such as libraries, universities and museums to ensure archives are preserved and accessible to the public, even if a fee is charged for certain uses. In related news, the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism and Robert H. Smith School of Business are launching a webinar series titled "The Business of Journalism in the Age of AI," exploring sustainable business models for journalism amidst AI advancements.
