The New York Times drops freelance journalist who used AI to write book review
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| Source: Mastodon | Original article
The New York Times has terminated its contract with freelance book reviewer Alex Preston after an internal audit revealed that his review of *A New Faith* was drafted with the assistance of an artificial‑intelligence tool and contained passages that closely mirrored a Guardian review of the same title. Preston told editors that he had used the free version of Google’s Gemini model to generate a “NYT‑style” critique, but he failed to spot the AI’s lift of several sentences and descriptive phrasing that were not attributed. When the similarity was flagged by the paper’s plagiarism‑detection software, the Times concluded that the breach violated its policy requiring full disclosure of AI‑generated content.
The episode arrives at a moment when major newsrooms are tightening rules around machine‑generated text. The Times announced in early 2024 that freelancers must label any AI‑assisted material, and the incident underscores how quickly those safeguards can be circumvented. It also revives broader industry concerns about the reliability of AI‑produced journalism, echoing recent debates sparked by the Catholic priest who helped draft Anthropic’s ethics code and the rise of FOSS activists calling for stronger policy frameworks.
Editors at the Times say the decision is “firm but necessary” to preserve editorial integrity, and they are reviewing past freelance submissions for similar issues. The fallout is likely to prompt other outlets to audit their own freelance pipelines and to invest in more sophisticated detection tools. Watch for statements from the National Press Club on standardising AI‑disclosure guidelines, and for possible legal challenges from freelancers who argue that the tools themselves, not the writers, bear responsibility for inadvertent plagiarism. The incident may become a benchmark case in the evolving battle between AI convenience and journalistic accountability.
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