201–210 of 223 posts
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He was, it's in the first paragraph > I have been sick with COVID all week /../, while working from bed with a fever and very little sleep, I unintentionally made a serious journalistic error in an article about Scott Shambaugh.
How do you unintentionally use an AI to help you write an article?
Former technology journalist here. If you want to experiment with reported news using untested tools that have known quality problems, do it in a strictly controlled environment where the output can be carefully vetted. Senior editor(s) need to be in the loop. Start with something easier, not controversial or high-profile articles. One other thing. If the author cut corners because he's too sick to write, but did so…
People don't value journalism. They expect it to be free, generally. Therefore, companies like Ars are put into a position of expecting too much from their journalists.
HN is rife with people with this attitude -- frequently linking to "archive" sites for otherwise paywalled articles, complaining when companies try to build email lists, charge for their work, or have advertising on their sites. The underlying message, of course, is that journalism shouldn't be paid for.
Yes, Ars is at fault if they have a bad company culture. However, the broader culture is a real factor here as well.
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Took me a while to find, here's one of the authors Benj Edwards with a statement on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p
looking at the statement, I find it weird that Benj Edwards is trying very hard to remove the blame from Kyle Orland, Even if he is not directly responsible.
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I agree that the work culture promoting this is bad, but being sick is still simply not an excuse to fabricate quotes with AI. It's still just journalistic malfeasance, and if Ars actually cares about the quality of their journalism, he should be fired for it.
> he should be fired for it. If anyone who makes a mistake rarely and owns it completely shall be fired, everyone would be homeless. To err is human, so owning what you did. This is the first time I have seen Ars to make a mistake of this kind in any size, so I think this is a good corrective bump given Ars' track report on these matters. Maybe we should learn to be a bit flexible and understanding sometimes. If you…
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Should he? Where does that mindset come from? The author has owned up to his mistake. Unless there is a pattern here, why would we not prefer to let him learn and grow from this? We all get to accidentally drop the prod DB once, since that’s what teaches us not to do it again.
He's not some junior developer with his first job, he's the senior editor. If a senior editor plagiarized an article, he would rightly be fired because it's a serious violation of journalistic ethics. He knew using AI tools like that was against company policy and he did it anyway. That's well beyond just making a mistake.
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There's no federal entitlement to being paid if you're sick, so companies come up with their own policies. So companies often have a strange concept of "sick days", a specific number of days a year you're allowed to be sick. If you're sick more than that you have to use your vacation days, or unpaid leave when you're sick. (And of course American companies often have weirdness around vacations too. More so in compani…
Thank you for the explanation.
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He was, it's in the first paragraph > I have been sick with COVID all week /../, while working from bed with a fever and very little sleep, I unintentionally made a serious journalistic error in an article about Scott Shambaugh.
How do you unintentionally use an AI to help you write an article?
Remember the old days when journalists would be excommunicated for plagarism and/or making things up? Some of those folks must be like "I was just too early..."
The clear difference between this and Stephen Glass-style confabulation is intent. There's no indication Edwards knowingly, deliberately invented quotes. It was a clumsy mistake.
Signing off on an article that 'quotes' someone by hallucination? I would say that, for a journalist- especially on ars - is slightly more than 'clumsy'.
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Well I appreciate you taking the time to respond and acknowledge the new evidence. I agree with the broad point that dishonesty can't be tolerated in a newsroom. And it's a "Caesar's wife must be beyond reproach" situation, the appearance of dishonesty is very bad regardless of the reality. And despite what Orland claims I do think there's blame to go around for not catching the mistake (assuming we accept his accoun…
> but it is weird for him to have COVID in December and February. Unlucky, sure, but not beyond the bounds of possibility. Also possible that one or both was actually flu or RSV or other non-COVID fever-inducing respiratory disease; people often just bucket them all under COVID these days (a bit like they used to with flu).
Remember the old days when journalists would be excommunicated for plagarism and/or making things up? Some of those folks must be like "I was just too early..."
Remember the old days when people paid for news? Ars is owned by Conde Nast, which had to let go of its HQ in 2024. I suspect they don't have a plan to replace a journalist like Benj if they axe him. And it's not like readers are going to hold them accountable.