A reporter in Wyoming thought he could get away with using AI to write his stories and invent quotes. He even put words in the mouth of Wyoming's governor. But it didn't take long before the 40-year-old journalist was found out — and fired.
The "rookie" reporter, Aaron Pelczar, "wrote" for the Cody Enterprise. But right away, veteran journalist CJ Baker of the Powell Tribune, a competing publication, could tell something was "off" when he read Pelczar's articles, according to HuffPost.
For instance, an article in June gushed about Larry the Cable Guy appearing at the 2024 Cody Stampede Parade, but in the next sentence the article bizarrely segued to, "This structure ensures that the most critical information is presented first, making it easier for readers to grasp the main points quickly."
The suspicious journalist, who's been in the business for 15 years, then began to investigate, and noticed a slew of other AI giveaways. From HuffPost:
Pelczar's story about a shooting in Yellowstone National Park included the sentence: "This incident serves as a stark reminder of the unpredictable nature of human behavior, even in the most serene settings."
Baker said the line sounded like the summaries of his stories that a certain chatbot seems to generate, in that it tacks on some kind of a "life lesson" at the end.
Another story — about a poaching sentencing — included quotes from a wildlife official and a prosecutor that sounded like they came from a news release, Baker said. However, there wasn't a news release and the agencies involved didn't know where the quotes had come from, he said.
"In one case, (Pelczar) wrote a story about a new OSHA rule that included a quote from the Governor that was entirely fabricated," Michael Pearlman, a spokesperson for the governor, said in an email. "In a second case, he appeared to fabricate a portion of a quote, and then combined it with a portion of a quote that was included in a news release announcing the new director of our Wyoming Game and Fish Department." …
Megan Barton, the Cody Enterprise's publisher, wrote an editorial calling AI "the new, advanced form of plagiarism and in the field of media and writing, plagiarism is something every media outlet has had to correct at some point or another. It's the ugly part of the job. But, a company willing to right (or quite literally write) these wrongs is a reputable one."
Baker ended up meeting with Pelczar and Enterprise Editor Chris Bacon, who has since publicly apologized and fired Pelczar. Bacon says the paper will immediately implement a new AI policy, which he says will be ready by the end of the week and will also be a "pre-employment topic of discussion."
"It matters not that the false quotes were the apparent error of a hurried rookie reporter that trusted AI. It was my job," Bacon wrote in an editorial. "I apologize, reader, that AI was allowed to put words that were never spoken into stories. I apologize to the Governor, the astronomers, our Public Works Director, Warden Crane and any other that I have not yet been able to confirm as misquoted. … I will do better."
Previously: Ethics expert Francesca Gino, already under fire over fabricated data, accused of plagiarism
