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SB Sarah
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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?
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Welcome back to Whatcha Reading! Here’s how we’re wrapping up May:
Welcome back everyone!
