A collection of images used to illustrate this column, centered around the AI-generated image I used April 8. Clockwise from top left, a photo of my dog looking out a window, a shot I took of my fourfold ruler from the hardware store of author Kurt Vonnegut’s family, a politics image generated with an AI, another photo of my dog following surgery to remove a painful jawbone tumor, an image of my late grandfather’s antique gold pocket watch and a sunset I photographed in the Outer Banks. Using my own photos means I know I have the rights to publish them.  

Sharp-eyed readers noticed I used an AI-generated image to illustrate last week’s column, showing a golden retriever honking a horn while surrounded by exclamation points.

Some thought it was cute, but one reader scolded me for not using a human artist for an illustration. I figure it’s time I provide some background about photos and illustrations used with our content, as the landscape has changed since the days when all we produced was a print edition.

With few exceptions, anyone publishing content on cleveland.com must include at least one photo, illustration or other visual element. Sounds simple, right? It’s not.

The hurdle is that anyone who publishes anything on our site has to be 100 percent sure that they have the rights to use it. That usually means the permission of a photographer or artist. 

In the old days, if a government office or anyone else handed out a photo with a press release, we presumed we had the rights. But we’ve come to learn that sometimes, people in government or public relations hand out photos for which they have not secured the rights, and if we publish them, we can get big bills from the rightsholders. These days, reporters have to figure out who took the handout photos and make sure we have permission to use them.

Reporters can’t automatically use photos in our archives, either. A cottage industry of photographers and lawyers has emerged to comb through our online archives and make claims that we used photos 10 or 15 years ago without permission. They make demands for ridiculous sums, hoping we’ve lost the provenance showing that we did have the rights. Each such claim costs us time and aggravation to prove that we used the photos legitimately.

To make sure news teams of the future don’t deal with such nonsense, we take pains today to leave no doubt. The best case is when a staff photographer or illustrator generates the images we use. Also ironclad are photos reporters take with their iPhones.

A lot of times, we don’t have a photo availability. Many crime shorts, for example, don’t lend themselves to new photos. That’s why you will see photos of police cars for municipalities where the crimes occur, or handcuffs. We’ve taken a lot of photos of handcuffs.

To illustrate this column, I’ve dug into my personal archive of photographs, knowing that I absolutely have the rights to those. I’ve lined up Scrabble-style tiles into words appropriate to the column and taken pictures of them. I’ve quickly taken pictures of voting stickers and even my dog.

And lately, I’ve tried using the AI called Dall-E 2 to generate an image, as I did last week. My topic was our Midwest guide to etiquette, answering questions about when you should honk a car horn, complain to owners of misbehaving dogs or avoid overuse of exclamation points. I asked Dall-e 2 for an image of a golden retriever honking a car horn while surrounded by exclamation points and received something back that I think was delightful. So, I used it.

One reader chided me for not hiring an illustrator, arguing that we would have in the old days. Well, these are not the old days. As I’ve explained previously, we’ve been on a mission to make our newsroom sustainable despite the challenges facing local journalism, and one way we do that is to control expenses. We do a lot more today than in the past with a much smaller team.

That doesn’t mean we don’t use illustrators. We ask them for help for content that merits their attention. Andrea Levy is among the best in the business, and we asked her to illustrate our Cleveland’s Promise project about education. The beautiful work she has done should be featured in a gallery exhibit. She has added so much to the project.

My weekly column does not merit Andrea’s effort. And even if it did, there’d be no time. I regularly figure out what the topic will be and write at the last minute. I could not, in good conscience, ask for an illustration on such a tight deadline.

The AI, however, needs no lead time. It generates four images within seconds of being asked. I should note that often, the AI images make no sense. The AI can be frustrating beyond words, but I laughed when I saw the image of the golden retriever, mouth wide open, honking the horn. It was exactly what I needed. 

I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com. 

Thanks for reading.