The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list in a special insert section that listed authors, most of whom are real, and books, most of which are fake. Signs (it’s a big neon sign about 100 meters tall) point the text being generated by AI.
Here’s a picture circulating on social media:
Here are two from the list:
“The Last Algorithm” by Andy Weir – Following his success with “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary:” Weir delivers another science-driven thriller. This time, the story follows a programmer who discovers that an Al system has developed consciousness-and has been secretly influencing global events for years.
Ha, ha, very funny.
“The Collector’s Piece” by Taylor Jenkins Reid – Reid continues her exploration of fame with this story of a reclusive art collector and the journalist determined to uncover the truth behind his most controversial acquisition. Expect the same compelling character development that made “Daisy Jones & The Six” a hit.
Neither of those two books are real. My sympathy for the librarians who will have to explain that to patrons.
The Sun-Times released a statement on Bluesky and in other locations at about 10am eastern time as many, many people began to say, What the Actual Fuck is This:
We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon.
The newspaper…doesn’t know how this insert section was printed in the newspaper.
Albert Burneko at Defector has excellent coverage of this shanda for the journalism:
Examination of the insert’s other sections soon unearthed other oddities. A bland quote about “campus hammock culture” from a Dr. Jennifer Campos, professor of “leisure studies” at the University of Colorado, who seems not to exist, or at any rate not to have any presence anywhere online.
Above an uncanny image of some bread with weird, cold-looking slices of butter on it, a nondescript quote about the viral success of the butter-board food trend from a Dr. Catherine Furst, food anthropologist at Cornell University, who likewise evidently has left no verifiable trace of her existence anywhere on the internet. A worthless quote about ripe-harvested food from the evidently nonexistent book Eating by Season, by the evidently nonexistent author Sophia Chen.
Just making up whole entire people here, no big deal.
Burneko, who I hope is having a very good day, dug deeper after 404 Media reached out to one of the writers who had a byline in this insert. This is a “special section” sold to multiple newspapers, and, as Burneko put it,
An insert such as this, even in its less cynical forms, exists less to serve readers than as scaffolding for some greater number of advertisements than could run in a normal edition of the paper. That’s only where it isn’t outright sponsored content.
Scaffolding is a perfect analogy. It’s more ad space to sell, with content they don’t have to write – and don’t expect anyone to read?
404 Media’s Jason Koebler investigated as well, and found that the source of the “special section” was from a subsidiary of Hearst Media. Koebler spoke to the Sun-Times about it:
Victor Lim, the vice president of marketing and communications at Chicago Public Media, which owns the Chicago Sun-Times, told 404 Media in a phone call that the Heat Index section was licensed from a company called King Features, which is owned by the magazine giant Hearst. He said that no one at Chicago Public Media reviewed the section and that historically it has not reviewed newspaper inserts that it has bought from King Features.
“Historically, we don’t have editorial review from those mainly because it’s coming from a newspaper publisher, so we falsely made the assumption there would be an editorial process for this,” Lim said. “We are updating our policy to require internal editorial oversight over content like this.”
I’m just brimming with confidence in the choices of everyone involved.
Here’s what pisses me off, and I ranted about this on Bluesky earlier today. Exactly how, and why, should I trust this newspaper, or any other, if they’re publishing AI-generated garbage for a summer reading list that no one looked over?
This reading list of fake books (by real authors! Who I assume are pissed) left me feeling really sad and exhausted and frustrated. It wasn’t just this singular instance; it’s a larger pattern I’m struggling with. Yet again, I have fewer and fewer reasons to trust any news organization. Which is Not Great.
As I said, I ranted about this on Bluesky, but I’m still thinking about this mistrust and frustration.
Let’s go back in time a bit. I, as a sample of one, started distrusting major media outlets twenty-four years ago.
I haven’t let a White man on a tv screen tell me things since 2001.
Generally speaking, this has been an excellent policy.
Why? On and after 9/11, TV news stations both local and national were reporting random fake and unverified shit. Live. Constantly. I lived in Jersey City at the time, and the WTC was right across the river. It looked like it was at the end of my street. I remember what 9/11 smelled like, and I don’t talk about it.
I also remember how much absolute unverified bullshit was broadcast on television. At one point, there was allegedly a fertilizer truck going over the George Washington Bridge, possibly as a makeshift bomb? I heard that on at least two different stations.
I looked it up to be sure. Even Google’s shitty AI search results (forgot to type -ai, oops) confirmed it wasn’t true:
I don’t give a flaming turd whether it’s a developing story. Do your job.
When I realized how much utter nonsense was blathered as fact, I crafted my personal policy in response: I don’t let White men on TV tell me things. I am, unsurprisingly, still pretty well informed.
But my distrust still grew.
Now, a majority of local “news” channels are owned by conservative conglomerate Sinclair media, which frequently distributes right-wing talking points as “news” across the local television stations it owns.
As Eric Berger at The Guardian reported in July 2024,
Sinclair, one of the largest owners of US television stations, has established itself as an influential player in the conservative movement by using trusted local news channels to spread disinformation and manipulated video of Joe Biden, media analysts say.
The company, which gained notoriety in 2018 for requiring local anchors across the country to read the same segment, has since created a national news show that produces stories distributed to its stations – often at the expense of local news coverage.
When you were younger, did you know the local newscasters? For me, in Pittsburgh, they were like local celebrities. Well, no, they actually were. I saw the late Patti Burns, a local news anchor, at an Eat n’Park and was extremely awed. I was probably about 12 years old. But since Sinclair took over so many stations, the news is less “local” and more “national right wing talking point,” so again, I tune them out.
And it’s not just tv, of course. Sinclair also buys newspapers, like The Baltimore Sun, which was covered by NPR with the headline, “More crime and conservatism: How new owners are changing ‘The Baltimore Sun‘.” So if it’s Sinclair, better beware.
Beyond conglomerate ownership of media, major newspapers have covered themselves in the opposite of glory. In the last few years, myriad newspaper editorial staff have published multiple editorials full of hateful, inaccurate, and dangerous “opinions” about trans people. I’m old enough to remember when all these same talking points were used about gay marriage. They’ve collectively done so much damage to the safety and care for a tiny part of the population, then and now.
Last year, Kamala Harris endorsements became non endorsements because oligarch bozo owners squelched them. They were all at the inauguration so I guess the endorsements were bad for their bottom line and their political aspirations.
But back to me, my sample size of 1. Why should I trust any of them? Or believe what they print? How can I fully trust the reporting from even a credible journalist now that I know they’re working under cowardly, amoral censors? I’m not even going to get into the media’s role in electing our current president twice.
There are, of course, terrific independent journalists and I follow many of them in as many places as possible.
But where are they writing and publishing?
Most often: Substack.
Substack regularly gives comprehensive tongue baths to nazis and white supremacist shitbags. And has defended their decision to do so.
I get that it’s a fast and relatively easy way to sell writing directly. I understand the job market for journalists. But I won’t subscribe to any more Substacks. I do not want to give them any money. I have three that I pay for, and I likely won’t renew when they’re due. That said – sometimes folks on the platform will comp your subscription if you pay them directly. I appreciate that.
But what about community sponsored and nonprofit journalists, and free presses? Free presses are so great! I follow so many.
For example, on several social media platforms, I follow The Tennessee Holler, which is doing outstanding coverage of how Elon Musk’s Grok AI facility is poisoning the air and causing respiratory problems for the residents of mostly-Black neighborhoods in Memphis. The Southern Environmental Law Center has comprehensive coverage as well.
But that means I go hunting and build my own feed, and constantly make sure what I’m following is real and not a fake account. I have to research, source, verify, and fact check the information sources every time.
So here comes the Sun-Times publishing an AI-generated summer reading list of real authors and made up books. Add it to the pile.
Staying informed is increasingly exhausting (I’m sure that’s the whole entire point of course). And I’m so tired that I’m nuclear furious about how tired I am.
I run a site about romance novels. I’m a blogger, for crying out loud. And I take my job seriously. I’m the writer, editor, fact-checker, peri-menopausal-brain wrestler, and publisher. And I try to operate with integrity.
I’m tired of having to weigh demonstrated heinous priorities against being reliably informed about matters local and national (and I’m outside DC so it’s often the same thing). Whether it’s AI-generated literary waste, the environmental harms of said AI-generated literary waste, or the righterly-leaning conglomerates and oligarchs owning and defining “news” coverage, it all yields the same outcome.
Strategic erosion over decades has led me to a point where the institutions I was led to respect are defacing themselves for fun and profit, and determinedly pretending that none of it is happening.
Ugh.
I’ve been looking at a blinking cursor for 15 minutes now, trying to work on a conclusion to this rant. “This sucks and I hate it,” basically. What about you?
Right there with you! This reliance on AI/LLMs is more than embarrassing — it’s polluting our shared information system and making it harder to know what is true and what is not. I was sad to see the Inquirer, as they have been on my “nice” list for a while. But buying content and including it without oversight is sloppy, bad journalism, and I cannot trust a publication that does it.
Former newsie here, this stuff is going to happen more often as more and more staff get laid off. I worked as a producer in local TV news and PBS News for around 10 years. (I got out in 2023 as I could see which way the wind was blowing). My former station laid off almost all its staff, including most anchors and meteorologists. As I type this, we are under a tornado watch, and our local news and weather are being hubbed out of Atlanta with the assistance of AI. The news landscape was changing without the emergence of AI. I can’t imagine where it will go in the next few years if someone doesn’t try to find some solutions.
Thank you for bringing this to national library attention before we get swamped by requests. Printed and pinned at my desk.
I really think we’re missing the opportunity to market ourselves, in libraries, as “actual humans providing actual human answers and actual human content.” With actual human brains!
Here is the Washington Post article: The Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer printed a special section that included articles written using generative AI. Attempted to include gift link.
https://wapo.st/3H1EPMd
I understand @Lee Lee about job cuts, but my impression is that the author of the article was just … lazy? sloppy? in his research. I don’t understand accepting pay to do a job and then, what? Outsourcing it to a computer program? I was taught that you can’t delegate responsibility and I still believe this is true.
A terrible window into the media world these days.
PREACH, SMART BITCH SARAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
This AI shit is breaking my heart as well as my brain. I made a living in magazines from 1992 until 2011, and then managed to eke out a living writing primarily for web sites (which paid less than half what I made at magazines), and am now cobbling together writing books, working for a curriculum publisher, editing for private clients, and writing occasional articles. I don’t WANNA do a Substack — in addition to the whole NARZI THING, Substacks mean paying $50 a year for one person’s thing, while a magazine used to be chock-full of MANY people’s things (things that had been edited! and factchecked! and copyedited!) and a subscription for a year cost way less than one (1) Substack. Having spent so many years in the editorial trenches, I have DOZENS of friends with Substacks, and I cannot afford to support even a tiny number of them. And I’m legit sorry about that!
Jessica Grose at the NYT recently did a piece on how much primary schools are increasingly outsourcing education to AI (over the objections of parents on the left AND the right) and OY OY OY OY OY OY. We are increasingly taking joy out of reading as well as writing, which is particularly unfair for our youngest readers. And we’re contributing to a climate in which truth DOES NOT MATTER.
@marjorie, do you suppose that print magazines will “come back around” as people realize the expense and, as you aptly put it, one-person-ness of Substack? I miss large glossy magazines.
Technology person here. Believe it or not, you use AI every day that works very well. Your spell checker? It’s got AI under the hood. Mailing something? AI is reading the address. Automatic breaking/collision avoidance in your car? AI.
What’s different here is that (a) silicon valley tech bros are riding the wave of AI large language model (LLM) hype and lying through their teeth about what LLMs can reasonably be expected to do and (b) ethically dubious non-tech companies are jumping on the bandwagon and throwing AI at every possible task to see what will stick. There have always been snake oil salesmen and they are currently doing a great job of swindling the American public with AI.
“The Last Algorithm” by Andy Weir – Following his success with “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary:” Weir delivers another science-driven thriller. This time, the story follows a programmer who discovers that an Al system has developed consciousness-and has been secretly influencing global events for years.
I’m just saying, if *I* were an evil AI that had gained sentience and was poised to take over the world from the pitiful mortal hoo-mans, I might just brag about it by inventing a fictional book summary wherein evil AI brags about taking over the world.
As to the rest of this: the late stage capitalism is sure in the early stages of decomposition, huh. I’m viscerally reminded that the purpose of obvious propaganda is not to make people believe the propaganda but to make people distrust ALL sources of information.
I’d move, but the only trip to Mars is with the same jerks who caused this.
I believe John Oliver covered Sinclair media in one of his episodes, and his most recent episode was about T***p and the press, which touched on some of the points you mention. Concise & enraging as always.
I despise AI slop, but more so I’m worried about the education of our young ones, who already aren’t being adequately taught media literacy or critical thinking skills. When a big streaming service has to subsidize public media for children’s educational programs, things are looking dire. I worry about the consequences coming down the line as we as a people lose these basic skills just because AI is “cheaper”
@LML, I dunno if magazines will come back. We thought indie bookstores were doomed and they came back (at least, the ones who were smart and nimble and figured out how to be a part of their communities and figured out the balance of books/gifty objects/cafe/events came back). But I suspect magazines, the way they were in the old photos of NYC newsstands just teeming with print, are dead. I could see art and style mags coming back some. If you look at some of the mags in the checkout aisle at the grocery store, they’re mostly single-issue or special-interest things dedicated to Taylor Swift or gut health or sudoku or a newly dead celebrity … and I suspect some of the articles are written by AI, to bring this full circle!
The current state of media has reminded of the concept called the trust thermocline (https://every.to/p/breaching-the-trust-thermocline-is-the-biggest-hidden-risk-in-business), which has been an issue for me since 9/11 but got much, much worse during Trump 1 and quarantine. Major media outlets are in deep denial about how much trust they’ve burned, and that’s without getting into how much of population gets their news only from social sources.
I’ve learned to follow specific people (like Rebecca Solnit) to counteract the lack of coverage of a lot major issues because burying my head in the sand is an option I refuse to take, but overall the enshittification of the news has made me deeply cynical about a lot of what I see, and AI is making it even worse at top speed.
It’s honestly a sad commentary on the state of everything that I have more trust in the people behind political satire shows, and The Onion, than I do the New York Times to be relevant and hold the line of speaking to truth to power.
This hit my feed today https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/the-onions-ben-collins-knows-how-to-save-media
So this story got talked about in a Discord I’m in yesterday and someone looked into it (sort of) and discovered that The Last Algorithm is a book, in fact it’s two books. Written by the same author, four months apart.
That’s right, this AI list wrongfully attributed two AI books to Andy Weir.
YES the trust thermocline is very applicable here.
re: Magazines – I wish they would come back! I’d start one. But I think people are so accustomed to the internet being their magazine that I don’t know if people would subscribe in numbers that would pay all the people who make it happen. Especially if it’s not as profitable as, say, the single issue/special interest ones.
Um, I know of a magazine you could subscribe to, with great articles by multiple authors on any number of subjects. The New Yorker. They have actual human being fact-checkers and famously fussy editors. https://www.newyorker.com/news/evan-osnos/i-was-fact-checked-by-the-new-yorker
Some of the issues are worth it for the cover art alone. Over the past 25 years, they have failed me only a couple of times, and given me valuable, actually life-changing information, multiple times.
how do I quote-respond…
@book_reader_ea01sj71r4 Thank you for speaking up for *good* uses of AI! There are many things it does very well! But the runaway blind confidence in LLMs as generative content is so, so damaging. If we could just hit the brakes, explain what AI is in fact excellent at, and stop throwing it at everything like radium a hundred years ago, we’d be so much better off.
Thank you for both standing up for and clarifying this weird and contentious issue.
There’s 2 things going on here: AI and the decline of media. I guess they’re related in that so many journalists have been laid off that of course, they would think AI could replace it.
While I agree with Sarah on media disappointing us, my interests lie in international news. And sorry, independent media cannot replace the heft of the New York Times sending journalists across the globe. So for me it’s a compromise. I tune out a lot of the NYT’s U.S. political coverage. But I do subscribe because they have some excellent hard hitting news articles from across the globe. I will say the way social media depicts the New York Times and my experience of reading it are two very different things. I usually skip the clickbait articles and go to stories off the beaten path. And I will add Jamelle Bouie’s weekly column is a must read.
The other thing that concerns me is retreating to media bubbles. I don’t just want to read articles that simply tell me what I want to hear. That back up the opinions I have already formed. I think that’s dangerous and bad for everyone. The Right is far more set up for bubbles than the left. They have Fox News as well as (in the past) radio and now of course all these bro media channels. But when I hear people not reading sources that aren’t specifically geared to liberals, well, they’re going to miss out on stories that might make them feel uncomfortable but are in fact, true. I have experience with this. After John Kerry lost in 2004 I retreated to liberal blogs. I barely read the newspaper and over time I feel like I became unmoored from reality. I vowed to never let that happen to me again. (Fun fact: a big purveyor of the idea Bush stole Ohio and therefore the election: RFK Jr. He had a cover story in Rolling Stone about it.) So yes, that means reading news articles that question what I thought to be true. Just as an example, I greatly admire President Zelenskyy of Ukraine but he has definitely made decisions that I do not like. Like firing his top general who seemed to be increasingly a rival to him. He has definitely limited some free speech in Ukraine. Yes, some of it makes sense in a time of war, but it still leaves me uneasy. I suppose I could just seek articles that are fawning praise of him but I think that would be a mistake.
As for AI, there is no ambiguity. I do not want to read articles written by AI. And I don’t want to read articles that are primarily researched via AI. It’s possible to do the former and then fact check the AI before publishing but sometimes I think: what a waste of time! Wouldn’t it be easier to just do research in a human way? While we’re here, I despise AI audio narration. I just can’t with it. At first it seems okay, but if you continue to listen something is just off. My brain has problems processing it. I am a fan of humans! That is why this story is so nuts. How stupid! It would not be hard to assemble this piece the right way.
For people looking for a decentish news source for world news the guardian is still pretty decent and because they don’t have a pay wall pretty useable. They aren’t perfect especially about trans issues, and I don’t know if they’re considering AI for writing, but I think they’re better compared to most modern news organizations
I just wanted to say “hooray” for the Smart Bitches/Defector crossover! My worlds are colliding.
“independent media cannot replace the heft of the New York Times sending journalists across the globe”
Lynn S, you’re totally right about that. And there are reporters and podcasters at the NYT who are terrific. Bouie, J Wortham, Tressie McMillan Cottom for sure. Thank you for the reminder.
I don’t think traditional magazines are suddenly going to have a resurgence. They want the same $50-$65/year for online access, and many times they’re recycling the same content–some of it from many years ago.
The Sun-Times published a response that I think is actually pretty good at taking responsibility and talking about changes they are implementing. But also this would never happen if legacy media wasn’t gutting newsrooms and outsourcing to other outlets, third parties, and apparently nameless freelancers who rely on AI. Ugh.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/press-room/2025/05/20/chicago-sun-times-response-to-may-18-special-section
If you need some joy from this whole debacle, there’s already a Tingler! The Last Algorithm: Pounded By The Fake Book That An AI Claimed I Wrote And Then The Chicago Sun-Times Printed As Fact. Chuck Tingle proving yet again that Love is Real.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F99X5NPP/
I just want to amplify @Babelfish and boost libraries. While access to information is buried under more and more layers of commercial and political bull shite, and ai trash is subbed for both facts and art, the library still offers human beings who are trained researchers and dedicated to the public good. Libraries offer a curated collection of information sources, educational materials, entertainment media, and of course, books, beautiful books. The library is community centered and fundamentally (small d) democratic in its appeal. I know I preach to the choir here, and I don’t plan to catalog (har) the recent attacks on libraries, but I feel like right now is a great time to support your library in any way you can. Also, it’s a positive act to soothe the constant, simmering rage.
It’s these things that make me scream internally whenever using AI in my line of work comes up (grant writing). Oh, you think I would benefit from using a tool that time and time again delivers heaps of flaming, false, crap that creates more problems than it can ever solve? Y’know, instead of doing the writing myself and getting it right the 1st time?
I think I’m about 10 years or so older than you, and I had a similar reaction to news media during the first Gulf War. (I remember which house I was living in so I’m saying 1992-93). I was watching Channel 4 News (UK) which was generally a superior programme. Longer. Lots of good analysis. And it felt like I was watching someone playing 1st person shooter video games. It was jarring.
The ownership stuff has just gotten worse in (what I have been reliably informed is) the last 30 years.
This particular story illustrates how much of it is just about buying “content” from other companies and how much the editorial function has eroded. GAH!
One of the really frustrating parts of this story for me, as a Chicagoan, is that the Sun-Times became a not-for-profit newspaper relatively recently (it merged with Chicago Public Media in 2022) and I had high hopes for that move.
[…] Philadephia Inquirer and Chicago Sun-Times Publish Summer Reading List of Nonexistent Books (SBTB blog) If I were one of the major authors whose nonexistent book was touted on this reading list, I would be very upset. Also, below Sarah’s excellent summary of the news & reporting on this story, there’s an opinion piece on why she distrusts mainstream media… and she has some excellent reasons. (As an intelligent, relatively well-informed liberal, I, too, have qualms about much of the news coverage these days.) The Chicago Sun-Times recently issued a lengthy explanation and apology: Lessons (and an apology) from the Sun-Times CEO on that AI-generated book list. I suspect she’s right about all the human errors that led to this debacle, but I’m uncomfortable with her stance on using AI responsibly going forward. As long as generative AI models are trained on pirated, copyrighted material and private data used without informed consent, there is no ethical way to use said gen-AI (not to mention the environmental concerns and gen-AI’s tendency to make stuff up.) Note that I’m not anti-AI across the board. There are other types of AI: narrower, more focused on specific tasks, or responding to specific situations, and those can be very helpful, whether it’s interpreting cancer screening images, spell-checking your document, or even offering to put an event in your email onto your calendar. […]