In a joint op-ed published earlier this month by Maya Schenwar, board president for Truthout and director of the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism; Negin Owliaei, Truthout’s editor-in-chief; and Ziggy West Jeffery, Truthout’s executive director, the trio noted that Google’s AI model, Gemini, is now prioritizing summaries of news articles at the top of its searches, leading to dramatic drop-offs in viewership for independent media websites.

“We lost 15 percent of our readership overnight,” the op-ed writers said. “This was a readership we painstakingly built over decades, and it vanished because Google chose corporate greed over a healthy democracy.”

Independent media like Truthout largely rely on donations from readers, who are asked to consider donating when they visit these sites. However, when Gemini summarizes these articles (or prioritizes corporate media instead in its summaries), the loss in revenue is noticeable.

“At Truthout, we anticipate a loss of roughly $500,000 in online revenue as a result of this massive traffic plunge in the next year alone,” the op-ed said.