In a joint interview with Fast Company, three USA Today Co. executives offered their fullest public defense yet of the company's Palantir deal. They argued that the partnership lets the newspaper chain observe how Palantir builds and deploys AI tools, while keeping its own data and operations out of Palantir's reach.
The executives' blunt framing — that they are inside Palantir's world, not the other way around — is meant to counter criticism that the deal hands a controversial defense-tech firm access to newsroom data. They cast the arrangement as a practical step for a company trying to integrate AI into journalism.
The Nieman Lab report notes the deal has drawn major criticism, but the article focuses on the executives' defense. With only this source, there is no independent account of the critics' specific objections or of whether the executives' claims hold up.