Not the Headlines! Extra A.I. in the news (literally)

The Listening To presents Not the Headlines Extra. This is Bob Woodley. I will be the first to admit that I'm old school, so to speak, if that's the modern phrase for someone with wisdom. And while I am no technological wizard when it comes to state of the art, I know enough to figure out how to create a program and get it downloaded in 74 countries and more than 1,100 cities. And everything about it comes from my own head. I do a lot of research. I try to stay informed. I wade through the garbage and propaganda and share what I see. And that will always be the case, and that's how it should be. But that isn't always how it is elsewhere. A recent study by the University of Maryland, cited by Media Confidential, says a growing percentage of our newspapers contain artificial intelligence generated content. I want to assure you that I am not, nor will I ever be, even partially AI generated content, to the extent that I can prevent others from creating it. I know that I'll run into AI-generated content during my research. I promise to be vigilant in my discretion. But there are some in the newspaper industry who have embraced AI and are employing it in their reporting. As we mourn the loss of local newspapers across the country, the smallest of them seem to be the ones most reliant on AI-assisted reporting. Less than 2% of the big city papers were found to have AI content, with small papers coming in at 7.5% higher. Shockingly, the study showed that in 2025, 40% of veteran reporters used AI to help them write articles. None of them disclosed that part or all of the content attributed to their name in the publication was actually written by an AI program. Look, I'm all for using technology to make our lives easier, but when you're a writer and you put your name to something, you have to be able to say it came out of your own brain. Sure, that brain was informed by other sources, but it came to its own conclusion, or at the very least, put into different words. Otherwise, you're just saying what something else said without attribution. It's kind of like quoting an unnamed source. But that's what the media thinks they're allowed to do. They've been quoting unnamed sources for decades. Perhaps the most memorable is Watergate's deep throat, whose identity was kept secret by the press. Follow the money, he's reported to have said. Will artificial intelligence lead some vulnerable reporter down a path of despair because that's what it learned how to do? Yet remain nothing more than an unnamed source, a fictional character created with a knowledge that the press would rely on or even blindly take what it says for gospel? And if that wasn't enough. Here's another thing. Artificial intelligence isn't getting into newspapers solely by reporters who are too lazy to do their jobs. Of the 186,000 articles that the study looked at, just over 9% of them were either all AI or part AI. Just in major newspapers, of which the study named The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, 219 of AI assisted articles were written by Public Figures and published in the opinion section. Public Figures is code for politician. So not only has AI infiltrated our reporters, but also our elected officials. These are the people who are supposed to tell us what happened and why it happened, respectively. We need to be able to know that what they're telling us is in their own words and not generated by some distant computer bank. That's not what we pay them to do. Not the reporters, not the politicians. Politicians need to just stop using AI to write anything they prepare to deliver in a speech or any type of statement without exception. Reporters need to disclose when and what content is AI generated if any is included in a published story with a reporter's byline. Hey, if you want to use AI to check your grammar, please do. The study also revealed who does disclose the use of AI. While more than 90% of publishers and authors who use AI fail to disclose it, those who publish environmental reports like weather forecasts and air quality alerts are likely to disclose the use of AI in the generation of the report. Thanks for listening. Follow the Listening Tube Podcast at thelisteningtube.com. I'm Bob Woodley for Thou Ad Infinitum. Get a lot more content from the Listening Tube with Bob Woodley Podcast.