It was Saturday, Oct. 18 of this year when The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial pages included an editor’s note at the top of page B-6 that said, “Welcome back, Steve Breen! The cartoonist from Encinitas who won a Pulitzer Prize while with the Union-Tribune in 2006 returns to our pages today after a two-year absence.”
“That was a nice thing for the UT to say,” Breen told Times of San Diego.
In that edition, the U-T page featured several of Breen’s editorial cartoons that were credited from “Creators.com,” a Hermosa Beach, CA-based media syndication service that once known as Creators News Service.
A syndication service is a business that represents writers and artists and distributes their news, editorial cartoons, opinion columns and feature stories to newspapers and other news media outlets worldwide.
“In one sense, I’ve been with Creators.com since the first day I was hired by the U-T in July of 2001,” said Breen.
That’s because Creators Syndicate, founded in 1987, merged with Copley News Service in about 1997. For decades, Copley News Service, founded in 1955, was operated by the Union-Tribune Publishing Company.
“I never really left the syndicate, and I’m still with them today,” said Breen.
So, why did the U-T say that Breen had been absent for two years? In July 2023, when the U-T’s new owners offered buyouts to longtime reporters and editors, Breen accepted.
A few months later, in Oct. 2023, Breen joined inewsource, a San Diego online investigative news service as an editorial cartoonist. He recently left inewsource and to serve as director of communications for Cathedral Catholic High School.
“I’ve never stopped producing content for Creators.com,” said Breen. “My guess is that someone at the U-T decided — for whatever reason — not to run my cartoons from Creators.com during the two years I was with inewsource.
“So, when someone thinks that I’ve been `absent,’ my response is similar to Mark Twain’s quote, ‘the reports of my absence are greatly exaggerated.’ I’m still alive and enjoying life and my career more than ever at the high school.”
Breen joined Cathedral Catholic in May
“I’ve always believed in the mission of Catholic education,” said Breen, the father of seven children. “Three of my children have graduated from this school. With this job, I now have the opportunity to promote the school and let the world know it’s a great place.
“I still have the opportunity to communicate creatively, which is basically the job of an editorial cartoonist. Plus, I have my own parking space, which I never had at the Downtown U-T office.”
Since the U-T’s Oct. 18 announcement, the paper has published several of Breen’s cartoons from Creators.com.
AMA, One Club hosting Mingle Bells holiday party
Two San Diego groups for marketing communications professionals are joining forces to host the 2025 Mingle Bells, a longstanding holiday party from 5 to 8:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 10, at the Sabertooth Grill at the San Diego Zoo.
The groups include the local chapter of the American Marketing Association and One Club for Creativity San Diego.
The Mingle Bells event dates its orgin back to 2004 when it was organized by the San Diego Advertising Club. Founded in 1911, the Ad Club was known for decades as the largest and arguably most influential business networking group in town.
Then, in May 2014, the 700-member Ad Club was renamed to SDX, a change that led to membership dropping to about 200. In August 2019, the group became The One Club for Creativity San Diego based on its affiliation with The One Club for Creativity, a New York-based organizer of an international advertising awards competition called The One Show.
Admission is $85 for members and $97 for nonmembers, and includes after-hours Zoo admission, two drink tickets and complimentary parking. Refreshments include appetizers and a signature cocktail. Entertainment includes a dance floor with live DJ and exclusive wildlife encounters. Visit SDAMA’s website for more information.
Did AI write that song? iHeart promises `Guaranteed Human’
Can you tell the difference between music produced by artificial intelligence and a human? Probably not.
A recent study from opinion research firm Ipsos and Deezer, a streaming music platform, found that 97% of respondents in eight countries could not tell the difference between AI-generated and human-made music.
The study surveyed about 9,000 participants from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Germany and Japan. Three-quarters (75%) of the sample surveyed in October were current music streaming users.
In a blind test with two AI-created songs and one human-created song, after 97% of participants were unable to tell the difference, 71% were surprised by the results and more than half (52%) felt uncomfortable with not being able to tell the difference.
Most respondents felt the need for transparency when it comes to AI, with 80% agreeing that 100% AI-generated music should be clearly labeled to listeners, while nearly three-quarters (73%) of music streamers say they would like to know if a music streaming service is playing 100% AI-generated music.
“The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they’re listening to AI or human made tracks or not,” said Alexis Lanternier, Deezer CEO, as reported by Inside Audio Marketing, an industry news service. “There’s also no doubt that there are concerns about how AI-generated music will affect the livelihood of artists, music creation and that AI companies shouldn’t be allowed to train their models on copyrighted material.”
In related news, iHeartMedia, the nation’s largest radio station operator, has doubled-down on position as one of the last “truly human” mass-reach entertainment platforms.
In a memo to staff, Tom Poleman, iHeart chief programming officer, said the tagline “Guaranteed Human” will become a central part of the company’s on-air identity.
Inside Radio, an industry news service, said Poleman’s memo formalizes how iHeart already has been positioning itself, including a focus on companionship, authenticity and human-drive content in a media landscape increasingly shaped by AI.
The memo said, “We don’t use AI-generated personalities. We don’t play AI music that features synthetic vocalists pretending to be human. And the podcasts we publish are also Guaranteed Human.”
iHeart’s research, outlined in the memo, suggests significant listener anxiety around AI and increasing value placed on human-made media:
- 90% want their media created by real humans, even though 70% use AI tools themselves.
- 92% say nothing can replace human connection, up from 76% in 2016.
- Two-thirds report social media makes them feel worse and more disconnected.
- Nine in 10 respondents say human trust can’t be replicated by AI
At the same time, listeners expressed deep concern about AI’s long-term implications:
- 82% worry about its impact on society.
- Three-quarters expect AI to complicate their lives.
- Two-thirds fear job loss from AI and another two-thirds worry AI could someday go to war with humans.
iHeartMedia operates 860 AM and FM broadcast radio stations in 160 U.S. markets, including eight stations in San Diego.
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