Sunday's Sun-Times included an insert of recommended summer activities that may not have gone through the normal editorial process:
The May 18th issue of the Chicago Sun-Times features dozens of pages of recommended summer activities: new trends, outdoor activities, and books to read. But some of the recommendations point to fake, AI-generated books, and other articles quote and cite people that don’t appear to exist.
Alongside actual books like Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman, a summer reading list features fake titles by real authors. Min Jin Lee is a real, lauded novelist — but “Nightshade Market,” “a riveting tale set in Seoul’s underground economy,” isn’t one of her works. Rebecca Makkai, a Chicago local, is credited for a fake book called “Boiling Point” that the article claims is about a climate scientist whose teenage daughter turns on her.
The newspaper responded this afternoon:
The special section was supplied by a nationally-recognized content partner and syndicated to the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers
We’ve historically relied on content partners for this information, but we are in a moment of great transformation in journalism, and we regularly evaluate our partnerships and processes to ensure we continue meeting the full range of our readers’ needs and our own journalistic standards.
Our partner confirmed that a freelancer used an AI agent to write the article. This should be a learning moment for all of journalism that our work is valued because of the relationship our very real, human reporters and editors have with our audiences.
They intend to "explicitly identify third-party licensed editorial content" going forward. Perhaps they can start by identifying the third-party content provider who screwed them? As a longtime Chicago Public Media supporter, I would very much like to know more about this.