Actual footage of what happened at The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s AI desk this week…
A journalist has accused Cleveland.com — the online home of The Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper — of publishing an article under her byline without her consent, knowledge, or approval. The article was generated by the “Cleveland.com Express Desk,” which “uses AI tools to assist in producing content” that the newspaper claims is “reviewed and edited by staff.”
The supposed writer, Kaitlin Durbin, was not thrilled about having her employer slap her byline on whatever the hell Cleveland.com’s robot overlords had decided to create:
The paper didn’t pull the rather banal article, but instead pulled Durbin’s byline which was like saying, “Hey, remember how we said AI wasn’t going to hurt the newsroom? Well… Um… Look! It’s a picture of a guy in a suit made of Bluey’s hide!”
(SIDE NOTE, PART I: This story could have used some actual reporting, as this literally reads like a press release that was copied and pasted into the paper. Also, anytime someone says they are quitting a job for “personal reasons,” I tend to believe that there’s something less benign happening that is just SCREAMING for someone to dig into it. )
DYNAMICS OF WRITING FLASHBACK: This whole thing would not be half as delicious as it is, if it weren’t for Plain Dealer Head Honcho Chris Quinn’s sermons from the Mount about AI being all that and a bag of chips.
You might remember we covered this back in February, where Quinn was so “Team AI,” you would have thought it were a “Twilight” character competing for Bella Swan’s affections. He also was nice enough to tell all of us in education that we were old, stubborn cusses who refused to see how great AI is and how much we are harming our students.
Well, at least when our kids turn in their papers, they actually have their own names on them…
(SIDE NOTE PART II: The clip I desperately want to use here to express my feelings about this whole situation comes from the opening of “Another 48 Hours,” when Nick Nolte is questioned by internal affairs after he shoots a guy and accidentally blows up a race track. The people at Sage would have a full on aneurysm if I posted it, so instead, I’m linking to this clip, while also telling you that it’s number nine on the top 10 quotes. Watch at your discretion.)
IT’S “ONE TO GROW ON” TIME: As much as I doubt Chris Quinn will read this, I still think it’s worth the rest of us to dig in and learn something from this situation. Here are the best “One To Grow On” moments I can pull out of this:
You can’t let automation make you lazy: One of the biggest risks of automation is that the humans supposedly overseeing it tend to pay less attention to the details. When we had to look up every word instead of relying on spellcheck, we tended to edit more carefully and thus avoid headlines that proclaimed the opening of a “pubic library” or one like this:
Generative AI moves that risk even higher, because a) it’s capable of doing more complex stuff for us than traditional AI, b) We’re not as familiar with its risks and c) We don’t know how best to backstop it yet.
This means we need to be MORE diligent with this stuff, not less.
What is the true Cost vs. Value of AI?: In his magnum opus, singing the praises of AI, Quinn explained how reporters will benefit from all the time AI could save them, so they could do other more important things. (Apparently, in this case, it saved the reporter enough time to go on a honeymoon without actually having to file the story she supposedly wrote…)
He also opined on how the readers will benefit from better overall coverage and how the world will benefit because people are now part of an “energized electorate” that will engage like never before.
The idea of saving time, energy and resources sounds great in terms of value, but what about the cost associated with ticking off a reporter who is publicly wondering aloud if the paper thinks it owns her soul?
Some portion of your newsroom probably thinks you’re already selling them out for a sack of magic beans and the promise of fourth-quarter profits for the hedge funds that own the place. Now, I imagine they’re less likely to believe that “AI is your friend” and more likely to think “The T-800 is coming for your job and your soul…”
Also, what about the cost associated with the loss of readership confidence in ALL of your work now? Before, it might have been, “OK, don’t trust anything with that AI Buzzword byline on it, but we know Kaitlyn and she’s solid.” Now it’s “OK, did the person we thought wrote the story actually write the story, or was it even a person at all?”
Trust and credibility have always been built a grain at a time when it comes to the media’s relationship with the public, and it’s always been destroyed in an instant when someone makes a short-sighted decision to cut corners.
AI can do a lot, but it can’t change that.
You’re a journalist, not a cult leader: One of the biggest problems here was Quinn’s “nothing to see here” response when the byline situation broke:
After this story was published, Quinn told Futurism that the byline blunder was “a simple mistake, the result of a miscommunication between a couple of editors.”
“It was corrected as soon as we learned of it from the Tweet,” Quinn continued, adding that he’s “written extensively about our policies, practices and controls regarding AI content in my From the Editor columns this year” and directing us to a post containing links to his statements on Cleveland.com’s AI policies. “If you’re looking for information about us, it’s all there,” said Quinn. “I have nothing to add.”
Back when he first was telling everyone who would listen that AI was not going to be a problem, he was singing this tune:
Because we want reporters gathering information, these jobs are 100 percent reporting. We have an AI rewrite specialist who turns their material into drafts. We fact-check everything. Editors review it. Reporters get the final say. Humans — not AI — control every step.
If that’s true, where did this story come from? Clearly the reporter given the initial credit (Durbin) didn’t write it, and apparently neither did anyone else, as there’s no byline on it now. Also, way to throw those human editors under the bus, just to make sure no one was thinking about the AI’s role in this screw-up.
Guys like this remind me of the line, “Often wrong, never in doubt,” and as bad as that normally is, it’s really disturbing to see it from the editor of a major media outlet.
Journalists are supposed to play the skeptic, hedge their bets, play with caution and find balance. It keeps us out of trouble and allows us to see things as they are, not as we would like them to be. It also allows us to fess up when we’re wrong, something that (oddly enough) inspires confidence in the people we serve.
If Chris Quinn wants to talk up the positives and crap all over people who point out the negatives, that’s fine, but do it as a PR guy for an AI firm or as the prophet for some sort of futuristic tech cult.
Journalists don’t have the luxury of arrogant presumption.
