In the middle of publishing a nine-part investigative series about the Catholic Church in Milwaukee and its role in shaping local immigration policy, the comments started coming in. Not about the research. Not about the reporting. Not about the politics. The criticism was aimed at the illustrations.
The custom and cohesive visuals were produced using generative AI and digitally edited by a human artist. For our newsroom, they solved a problem we’ve run into for years: stock photo archives often don’t cover niche or complex topics well, and when they do, the available images are scattered across styles and sources.
We could have used press photos, but most would have been generic or unrelated to Milwaukee, and often too literal for the editorial tone. We wanted illustrations with visual cohesion, and the AI option gave us that on deadline and within budget.
The backlash, however, was swift. Two messages arrived in less than 24 hours, both from people with tech-related jobs. One was a rant about how AI illustrations are “evil” and that we should hire illustrators instead. Another, sent as a short, pointed email, claimed our choice “undermines credibility” and “makes the entire organization look unprofessional and anti-truth.”
What neither critic acknowledged — and what rarely gets admitted in these debates — is the economic reality of running a newsroom. Deadlines are fixed. Budgets are tight. Illustration work is not just a click away as critics seem to imagine.
Even if an illustrator could be found on short notice, commissioning high-quality work for a multi-part editorial series is beyond the reach of most small publications. The suggestion that ethical journalism is contingent on hiring freelance illustrators for every header image ignores the realities of cost, time, and availability.
It also ignores a larger truth: technology has been replacing or reshaping creative work for decades. This is not unique to AI.
When Google Maps became the default navigation tool, Rand McNally stopped printing the volumes of road atlases that once sat in every car glove compartment. That shift didn’t come from malice — it came from innovation. The printing plants, distribution networks, and cartographers tied to those atlases were casualties of a change in tools.
When Google News and other aggregators began curating headlines, traditional newspapers lost a significant share of their readership. That decline — compounded by the collapse of print advertising — shuttered hundreds of newsrooms and put thousands of journalists out of work. There was no moral campaign to “stop using Google” in solidarity with displaced reporters.
When smartphones became everyone’s camera, casual Facebook uploads replaced the work of event photographers for countless clients. Entire segments of commercial photography — school dances, small weddings, community events — were decimated by the fact that nearly everyone had a capable camera in their pocket. The shift didn’t spark a movement to “stop using phone photos” out of respect for professional photographers.
In 2014, an image went viral showing a Radio Shack newspaper ad from the early 1990s. Nearly every product in that ad — camcorders, answering machines, radios, tape recorders, calculators — now exists as an app or function on a smartphone. Each of those replaced items once supported a set of jobs, from manufacturing to sales to repair. Technology didn’t ask permission. It just arrived, and the market adapted.
The pattern is familiar: a new tool emerges, people adopt it, and certain jobs disappear or change. This cycle has happened in every era — from the printing press to the desktop publishing revolution, from analog film to digital editing, from physical archives to searchable databases.
Generative AI is just the newest wave.
Yet the emotional reaction to AI seems amplified, bordering on hostile. In online spaces, it’s not uncommon to see AI labeled as an “evil monster” that will “take everyone’s job.” Some of the anger is rooted in real economic anxiety. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that about one in five U.S. workers is concerned that AI will make their job obsolete. That fear is higher among workers in fields already seeing early AI adoption — including design, writing, and media.
But fear and ethics are not the same thing. AI can be used unethically — to fabricate news photos, to impersonate individuals, to plagiarize artwork. It can also be used ethically — to create clearly labeled editorial illustrations, to visualize abstract concepts, to supplement a newsroom’s creative capacity without misrepresenting reality.
The core of the criticism in our case wasn’t that the art was deceptive — no one looking at the images could confuse them for press photos. The critique was that using AI art, instead of hiring an illustrator, was inherently wrong. That’s a moral judgment about resource allocation, not an accusation of dishonesty.
The problem is that such moral judgments are often one-directional. The same critics who condemn AI art on ethical grounds are silent about other cost-saving tools in journalism. Reporters use Google for background information rather than manually combing city hall archives. Photographers edit digitally instead of in darkrooms. Layout is done in InDesign, not with paste-up boards. None of these shifts provoked sustained outrage, because they have become invisible — normalized as the standard tools of the trade.
Generative AI will almost certainly reach that stage for some editorial uses. The question is whether small publications will be punished in the meantime for using the tools that keep them competitive.
Critics often argue that AI art “takes away work” from illustrators. That’s a legitimate concern when an organization that can afford to hire artists chooses not to. But applying that same logic to a small newsroom operating on a minimal budget ignores a fundamental reality. If the cost of doing something “the right way” is prohibitive, the likely outcome is that it doesn’t get done at all.
In our case, the choice was not between paying an illustrator or using AI. The choice was between having strong, cohesive visuals for the series — or publishing without them. The deadline wasn’t moving. The budget wasn’t changing. The options were limited. We have stock photo resources, but none of them had suitable visuals. And we would have been forced to use those options before entertaining the idea of commissioning a freelance photographer.
This isn’t unique to us. Across the country, local newsrooms are making similar calls every day. They use free stock photos because they can’t afford custom shoots. They run wire service content to fill gaps in coverage. They rely on public-domain archives for historical illustrations. These are all compromises born of necessity, not neglect.
The argument that AI art uniquely “undermines credibility” also deserves scrutiny. Credibility in journalism is built on accuracy, fairness, and transparency — not on whether an image was hand-painted or digitally generated. An inaccurate caption on a press photo does more damage to trust than a clearly labeled AI illustration ever could.
There’s also a selective memory at work in some of these critiques. The internet, as a whole, is a double-edged tool. It is home to both groundbreaking reporting and industrial-scale misinformation. Social media platforms like TikTok have documented harm to mental health, particularly among younger users. Yet there is no organized movement demanding that all journalists avoid using the internet or social media entirely because of their potential for abuse. We understand that tools are neutral — it’s how they’re used that matters.
Generative AI should be judged by the same standard.
The moral absolutism around AI often collapses under closer examination. If we apply the “no AI” principle consistently, then by extension we should also abandon all tools that have replaced human labor. No digital cameras because they reduced demand for film developers; no word processors because they eliminated typesetting jobs; no email because it displaced postal workers. That’s not how technology adoption works. No one has said, “never use a tool if it disrupts an industry.” The goal has always been “use the tool responsibly.”
The intensity of today’s AI backlash seems fueled by more than ethics. Part of it is fear, fear of being left behind in a rapidly changing landscape. AI moves quickly, and for some, the idea that a program can create art, text, or audio in seconds is threatening to their sense of skill value. That fear is understandable. But turning that fear into a purity test for others is not a path toward constructive adaptation.
The reality is that small, independent newsrooms can’t wait for every cultural debate to settle before deciding what tools to use. We don’t have the luxury of sitting out technological shifts without sacrificing relevance. We have to balance immediacy, cost, and integrity — and make choices that serve our readers and our mission.
In the case of our Catholic Church immigration series, the AI illustrations weren’t about cutting corners or chasing trends. They were about delivering a cohesive visual experience for a complex topic. They were intentional, and they supported good storytelling. They did not replace a paying illustrator’s commission — because no such commission was feasible in the first place.
> READ: Catholic Doctrine on Immigration in Milwaukee
That distinction matters. It’s the difference between displacement and access. If a newsroom with resources replaces its art department with AI prompts, that’s a valid target for criticism. If a newsroom without those resources uses AI to do what would otherwise be impossible, that’s a form of survival.
The conversation about AI in creative industries should happen, but it has to happen with honesty about the full context. It cannot be reduced to moral posturing that ignores economic reality, and it cannot be weaponized to delegitimize work that is accurate, ethical, and in service to the public.
Every major shift in media history — from movable type to the smartphone — has come with warnings of lost jobs and degraded standards. And yes, jobs were lost. Standards evolved. But journalism survived because it adapted. It did not survive by clinging to the past at the expense of the present.
We are not turning away from illustrators. We are not turning away from the truth. We are navigating a technological moment with the same principles that guide every other editorial choice we make: tell the story, tell it well, and tell it in a way that connects with readers. The tools may change, but the mission does not. And if we get it wrong, we learn a lesson and consider how best to move forward.
MI Standards for Ethical Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is not the future of journalism. People are.
Milwaukee Independent views AI as a tool. It is not a replacement, not a shortcut, and never a source. Technology can support the work of journalists, but it cannot do the work of journalism.
As generative systems become more capable, our responsibility becomes more clear. We will not let machines undermine the trust we have earned from our readers.
As a community-based journalism platform rooted in public trust, Milwaukee Independent acknowledges the profound impact that generative artificial intelligence (AI) holds over the future of storytelling, analysis, and civic discourse.
Emerging technologies must be critically evaluated not only for their promise, but also for their risk.
We believe AI should serve humanity, not supplant it. It must reinforce our editorial independence, never automate it.
