According to The Verge, on Friday, December 5, 2025, Meta announced new AI licensing deals with CNN, Fox News, USA Today, and People Inc. The company also signed agreements with conservative outlets The Daily Caller and The Washington Examiner, as well as France’s Le Monde. This move is a direct response to publishers suing AI companies for using content without permission. In fact, on that same Friday, The New York Times filed a lawsuit against AI startup Perplexity to stop it from using its news. Meta says these partnerships will help its AI deliver “timely and relevant content” from diverse viewpoints. This shift follows Meta’s earlier retreat from news, having shut down Facebook’s News tab and pulled news from its platforms in Canada after a law required payment.
Meta’s News U-Turn
Here’s the thing: this is a complete about-face for Meta. They spent the last few years very publicly backing away from news. They killed the News tab. They pulled news in Canada to avoid paying. Mark Zuckerberg basically said the news business wasn’t worth the headache or the regulatory risk. So why the sudden check-writing? It’s simple: AI training and real-time responses need high-quality, factual data. And you can’t reliably get that by just scraping the web anymore—not with billion-dollar lawsuits flying around. So now, they’re paying up. But it feels less like a grand partnership and more like a necessary tax to keep their AI from being legally or factually bankrupt.
The Lawsuit Backdrop
You can’t look at Meta’s deal in a vacuum. The New York Times suing Perplexity on the exact same day is the whole story. It’s a stark warning shot to every AI company still trying to go it alone without licenses. The message is clear: the free-for-all era of training on and regurgitating copyrighted news is over. Meta, with its deep pockets, can afford to cut these checks. Smaller startups like Perplexity? They’re in a much tougher spot. This is creating a two-tier AI system: the giants who can pay for legitimacy, and everyone else scrambling or facing legal oblivion. Is that good for competition? Probably not.
Fox & CNN: Strange Bedfellows
Let’s talk about that partner list for a second. Fox News and CNN? The Daily Caller and Le Monde? Meta’s statement about “a wide variety of viewpoints” is an understatement. It’s a wild ideological spectrum. On one level, it’s a smart CYA move—they can claim their AI isn’t biased toward any one political slant. But operationally, it’s a nightmare. How does the AI weigh a story from Fox against one from CNN on the same event? Does it just serve both and let the user sort it out? This isn’t a technical problem; it’s a philosophical and reputational minefield. The quest for “balance” might just lead to confusing or contradictory outputs.
A Costly Band-Aid
So, is this the solution? I’m skeptical. It feels like a costly band-aid on a gushing wound. Meta is paying a handful of major players, but what about the thousands of other publishers and local news outlets whose content also feeds the web? This deal doesn’t solve the systemic issue. It just makes CNN and Fox a new class of privileged suppliers. And for Meta, the costs will only go up as more publishers demand their piece of the pie. They’ve swapped the legal risk of theft for the financial burden of licensing. Which is better for them? Maybe the legal one was scarier. But let’s not pretend this is some noble revival of journalism. It’s a pure, hard-nosed business calculation to keep their AI product alive and lawsuit-free. The real test is whether users even care where the AI’s facts come from.
