A reporter in Wyoming has resigned after being found to have fabricated quotes.
This isn’t the first time a journalist has made things up, but there’s a new wrinkle: it appears to be the first time using artificial intelligence.
A competitor, CJ Baker of the Powell Tribune, first suspected AI when he noticed some odd wording in stories from new Cody Enterprise reporter Aaron Pelczar.
Baker knew he had to investigate further when he found made-up quotes from seven people, including the governor.
“I think there's a lot of room for disagreement in journalism about how best to do things, but the red line is that you never make stuff up,” Baker said.
The Cody Enterprise has since confirmed that AI was used to misquote people. The publisher said in a statement that using the technology is an “advanced form of plagiarism” and that they now have a system in place to catch AI-generated stories.
It’s still unclear what that policy looks like. The paper’s editor denied a request to comment and said that Pelczar is “no longer taking calls on the matter.”
The scandal comes as newsrooms are grappling with how to integrate AI technology amid a lot of other pressures on the industry — especially in local news.
Alex Mahadevan, who leads a program at the Poynter Institute which teaches digital media literacy, said AI can be a real gamechanger for struggling newsrooms, helping with tasks like transcribing interviews and creating meeting summaries.
“So when I see an incident like this, it pushes back the progress that we've made over the last year in implementing AI and frays the trust that we have with our audiences,” Mahadevan said.
Mahadevan said all newsrooms should implement a public-facing policy on their use of AI, including a list of ways the technology should and shouldn’t be used, along with consequences for when people are caught using it inappropriately.
Wyoming Public Radio does not use generative AI. Many of the tools reporters use when reporting, like a transcription service called Descript, use AI. WPR does not use these tools to create images or scripts.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio (KNPR) in Las Vegas, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
