News organizations treat photographs and illustrations as different categories with different obligations. Generated imagery entered under the illustration rules, which explains how it is labeled.
Photographs carry a factual claim
A published photograph asserts that a scene existed and was captured. Standards for photojournalism limit alteration to adjustments that do not change content.
Nothing generated can satisfy that claim, so generated images cannot be used where a photograph is expected. The prohibition is categorical in most American newsroom policies.
This is why generated images do not appear as news photographs even when a story lacks imagery. An absence of pictures is preferable to a false factual claim.
Illustrations have always been permitted
Newspapers and magazines have long published drawings, charts, photo illustrations and conceptual images. Readers are expected to understand these as interpretations.
The convention is a visible caption identifying the image as an illustration and naming the person or organization responsible. Generated imagery inherits that convention.
Labeling therefore usually specifies both that the image is an illustration and that it was produced with a generative tool, which is more detail than a hand illustration receives.
Subject matter sets the harder limits
Most policies prohibit generated depictions of identifiable people, real events and real locations even when labeled, because the label is easily separated from the image once it circulates.
Abstract or conceptual subjects are treated as lower risk. An abstract image about a policy topic makes no claim that can be misread as documentary.
The limiting principle is whether a viewer encountering the image without its caption could take it as a record of something that happened.
Provenance metadata is being adopted unevenly
Technical standards exist for attaching creation history to an image file so that downstream systems can display it.
Adoption depends on the whole chain preserving the data, and social platforms commonly strip metadata during processing, which limits how far the signal travels.
Wire services set much of the practice
Because most American outlets take imagery from a small number of wire and stock providers, those providers' rules propagate widely.
A provider that refuses to distribute generated images as news photographs effectively enforces that standard across its customers.
Following provider policy rather than individual newsroom statements gives a more accurate picture of what is actually reaching print and broadcast.