KeyCrew Media, a real estate intelligence and media company, is meeting with members of Congress and their staff in Washington, D.C., as part of the News/Media Alliance’s 2026 Support Journalism Fly-In. The company is joining more than 220 participants from news, magazine, and digital-only publishers to press for legislation that protects how journalistic content is used by AI companies. The fly-in has two purposes: celebrating congressional champions of the news industry and reinforcing the need for legislation that supports quality journalism. KeyCrew’s focus in those meetings is clear rules for how AI companies can use publishers’ content.
KeyCrew licenses its own content broadly, including to AI platforms. Its support for stronger protections can seem surprising at first, but the company sees no conflict. Its argument is that every publisher should have the legal right to decide how its work is used, whatever that decision turns out to be. This position comes from its own business model, which rests on a legal framework that governs what the company and third parties can and cannot do with its reporting.
According to Steve Marcinuk, Co-Founder and CEO of KeyCrew Media, the issue is not that AI companies use news content. The issue is how some of that use happens. “There’s a real risk right now that large tech companies are using information without proper licensing, building solutions on the back of work done by local organizations, with no compensation, no oversight, and no responsibility,” said Marcinuk. Many AI platforms were built and trained on content that was not properly sourced. Publishers now face the question of how to enforce their preferences going forward.
Marcinuk acknowledges that technology can help block unauthorized scraping, but it cannot settle who has the right to decide. That is where legislation comes in. KeyCrew is more open about AI use than many traditional publishers, but Marcinuk says that openness is a choice, and that the ability to make that choice is exactly what the fly-in is meant to protect. “We’ve made a conscious choice to be very open about where our content can be used and distributed. We’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and money setting up the right legal framework to make that possible, including licensing to AI companies and other downstream partners,” said Marcinuk. “But let’s not confuse concepts. That is us expressing our choice for what is done with our content, the same way other publications should be able to enforce their rights about what can and can’t be done with theirs.”
He also pushes back on the idea that publishers seeking protections want to shut AI out entirely. Many of the publishers KeyCrew has met through the News/Media Alliance already license content to AI companies with legal structures and clear terms on how the content is used, displayed, and compensated. “It’s not the case that every publisher is trying to completely block their content from appearing in AI in every form or being used in training. Far from it,” said Marcinuk. “But they are having thoughtful conversations about how their content will appear, and they have every right to do so.”
More people now get information through AI platforms, and AI companies are consuming more content than ever. Marcinuk sees this as the moment for media companies to be at the center of decisions about how their content is and is not used. The outcome matters beyond publishers’ revenue. When local organizations cannot control or be paid for their work, fewer of them can afford to keep producing it, affecting readers, subscribers, and the ability to operate well into the future. For KeyCrew, which interviews local experts across hundreds of real estate markets and provides that coverage to publishers filling gaps in their local reporting, a healthy media ecosystem is part of its own foundation. Clear legal protections give every publisher the ability to choose its own path with AI, whether that means broad licensing like KeyCrew’s or tighter limits. As a company that also operates as KeyCrew Media, it emphasizes that the fight is about ensuring a vibrant and independent press.
