Will 'AI-Assisted' Journalists Bring Errors and Retractions?
Published on 2026-04-05T21:22:00Z
Meet the "journalist" who "uploads press releases or analyst notes into AI tools and prompts them to spit out articles that he can edit and publish quickly," according to the Wall Street Journal. "AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune's web traffic in the second half of 2025." And most were written by 42-year-old Nick Lichtenberg, who has now written over 600 AI-assisted stories, producing "more stories in six months than any of his colleagues at Fortune delivered in a year." One Wednesday in February, he cranked out seven. "I'm a bit of a freak," Lichtenberg said... A story by Lichtenberg sometimes starts with a prompt entered into Perplexity or Google's NotebookLM, asking it to write something based on a headline he comes up with. He moves the AI tools' initial drafts into a content-management system and edits the stories before publishing them for Fortune's readers... A piece from earlier that morning about Josh D'Amaro being named Disney CEO took 10 minutes to get online, he said... Like other journalists, Lichtenberg vets his stories. He refers back to the original documents to confirm the information he's reporting is correct. He reaches out to companies for comment. But he admits his process isn't as thorough as that of magazine fact-checkers. While Lichtenberg started out saying his stories were co-authored with "Fortune Intelligence", he now typically signs his own name, according to the article, "because he feels the work is mostly his own." (Though his stories "sometimes" disclose generative AI was used as a research tool...) The article asks with he could be "a bellwether for where much of the media business is headed..." "Much of the content people now consume online is generated by artificial intelligence, with some 9% of newly published newspaper articles either partially or fully AI-generated, according to a 2025 study led by the University of Maryland. The number of AI-generated articles on the web surpassed human-written ones in late 2024, according to research and marketing agency Graphite." Some executives have made full-throated declarations about the threat posed by AI. New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said AI "is almost certainly going to usher in an unprecedented torrent of crap," referencing deepfakes as an example. The NewsGuild of New York, the union representing Fortune employees and journalists at other media outlets, said the people are what makes journalism so powerful. "You simply can't replicate lived experiences, human judgment and expertise," said president Susan DeCarava. For Chris Quinn, the editor of local publications Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer, AI tools have helped tame other torrents facing the industry. AI has allowed the outlets to cover counties in Ohio that otherwise might go ignored by scraping information from local websites and sending "tips" to reporters, he said. It has also edited stories and written first drafts so the newsrooms' journalists can focus on the calls, research and reporting needed for their stories.... Newsrooms from the New York Times to The Wall Street Journal are deploying AI in various ways to help reporters and editors work more efficiently.... Not all newsrooms disclose their use of AI, and in some cases have rolled out new tools that resulted in errors or PR gaffes. An October study from the European Broadcasting Union and the BBC, which relied on professional journalists to evaluate the news integrity of more than 3,000 AI responses, found that almost half of all AI responses had at least one significant issue. Last week the New York Times even issued a correction when a freelance book reviewer using an AI tool unknowingly included "language and details similar to those in a review of the same book published in The Guardian." But it was actually "the second time in a few days that the Times was called out for potential AI plagiarism," according to the American journalist writing The Handbasket newsletter. We must stem the idea being pushed by tech companies and their billionaire funders who've sunk too much into their products to admit defeat that the infiltration of AI into journalism is inevitable; because from my perch as an independent journalist, it simply is not... Some AI-loving journalists appear to believe that if they're clear enough with the AI program they're using, it will truly understand what they're seeking and not just do what it's made to do: steal shit... If you want to work with machines, get a job that requires it. There are a whole lot more of those than there are writing jobs, so free up space for people who actually want to do the work. You're not doing the world a favor by gifting it your human/AI hybrid. Journalism will not miss you if you leave... But meanwhile, USA Today recently tried hiring for a new position: AI-Assisted reporter. (The lucky reporter will "support the launch and scaling of AI-assisted local journalism in a major U.S. metro," working with tools including Copilot and Perplexity, pioneering possible future expansions and "AI-enabled newsroom operations that support and augment human-led journalism.") And Google is already sponsoring a "publishing innovation award"...
Published on 2026-04-05T21:22:00Z
Meet the "journalist" who "uploads press releases or analyst notes into AI tools and prompts them to spit out articles that he can edit and publish quickly," according to the Wall Street Journal. "AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune's web traffic in the second half of 2025." And most were written by 42-year-old Nick Lichtenberg, who has now written over 600 AI-assisted stories, producing "more stories in six months than any of his colleagues at Fortune delivered in a year." One Wednesday in February, he cranked out seven. "I'm a bit of a freak," Lichtenberg said... A story by Lichtenberg sometimes starts with a prompt entered into Perplexity or Google's NotebookLM, asking it to write something based on a headline he comes up with. He moves the AI tools' initial drafts into a content-management system and edits the stories before publishing them for Fortune's readers... A piece from earlier that morning about Josh D'Amaro being named Disney CEO took 10 minutes to get online, he said... Like other journalists, Lichtenberg vets his stories. He refers back to the original documents to confirm the information he's reporting is correct. He reaches out to companies for comment. But he admits his process isn't as thorough as that of magazine fact-checkers. While Lichtenberg started out saying his stories were co-authored with "Fortune Intelligence", he now typically signs his own name, according to the article, "because he feels the work is mostly his own." (Though his stories "sometimes" disclose generative AI was used as a research tool...) The article asks with he could be "a bellwether for where much of the media business is headed..." "Much of the content people now consume online is generated by artificial intelligence, with some 9% of newly published newspaper articles either partially or fully AI-generated, according to a 2025 study led by the University of Maryland. The number of AI-generated articles on the web surpassed human-written ones in late 2024, according to research and marketing agency Graphite." Some executives have made full-throated declarations about the threat posed by AI. New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said AI "is almost certainly going to usher in an unprecedented torrent of crap," referencing deepfakes as an example. The NewsGuild of New York, the union representing Fortune employees and journalists at other media outlets, said the people are what makes journalism so powerful. "You simply can't replicate lived experiences, human judgment and expertise," said president Susan DeCarava. For Chris Quinn, the editor of local publications Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer, AI tools have helped tame other torrents facing the industry. AI has allowed the outlets to cover counties in Ohio that otherwise might go ignored by scraping information from local websites and sending "tips" to reporters, he said. It has also edited stories and written first drafts so the newsrooms' journalists can focus on the calls, research and reporting needed for their stories.... Newsrooms from the New York Times to The Wall Street Journal are deploying AI in various ways to help reporters and editors work more efficiently.... Not all newsrooms disclose their use of AI, and in some cases have rolled out new tools that resulted in errors or PR gaffes. An October study from the European Broadcasting Union and the BBC, which relied on professional journalists to evaluate the news integrity of more than 3,000 AI responses, found that almost half of all AI responses had at least one significant issue. Last week the New York Times even issued a correction when a freelance book reviewer using an AI tool unknowingly included "language and details similar to those in a review of the same book published in The Guardian." But it was actually "the second time in a few days that the Times was called out for potential AI plagiarism," according to the American journalist writing The Handbasket newsletter. We must stem the idea being pushed by tech companies and their billionaire funders who've sunk too much into their products to admit defeat that the infiltration of AI into journalism is inevitable; because from my perch as an independent journalist, it simply is not... Some AI-loving journalists appear to believe that if they're clear enough with the AI program they're using, it will truly understand what they're seeking and not just do what it's made to do: steal shit... If you want to work with machines, get a job that requires it. There are a whole lot more of those than there are writing jobs, so free up space for people who actually want to do the work. You're not doing the world a favor by gifting it your human/AI hybrid. Journalism will not miss you if you leave... But meanwhile, USA Today recently tried hiring for a new position: AI-Assisted reporter. (The lucky reporter will "support the launch and scaling of AI-assisted local journalism in a major U.S. metro," working with tools including Copilot and Perplexity, pioneering possible future expansions and "AI-enabled newsroom operations that support and augment human-led journalism.") And Google is already sponsoring a "publishing innovation award"...
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