Comment by madamelic
5 hours ago
Maybe I don't understand journalism but this guy being a reporter, shouldn't he have had an editor reviewing his work before they hit publish? I understand trusting a senior reporter but I would think due to libel concerns, they would check people's quotes ESPECIALLY if the reporter was sick.
Honestly it seems like journalism has been in their 'vibe code' era for a decade where they just publish whatever typos and all.
This was an institutional error, not an individual reporter's fault. We should also be asking why he was still contributing when he had a high fever. Why did his editors push him to publish his work? I will certainly write code and answer questions when I am sick when I am up to it but I would never push to main while sick.
> Maybe I don't understand journalism but this guy being a reporter, shouldn't he have had an editor reviewing his work before they hit publish?
While the journalist is still responsible for their own actions, I agree with you that this being published in the first place is indicative of a deeper failure akin to - "if a junior dev accidentally deletes your production db on their first day that's on the company itself"
> failure akin to - "if a junior dev accidentally
This person was not a junior.
He chose to use the AI tools knowing that they hallucinate.
The comparisons to an untrained junior are illogical. This person was a long time reporter who knew better.
Even a senior dev being able to unilaterally delete your prod entirely should not be possible.
But I don't think the intention was to compare with junior devs, its just a popular shorthand for "your process sucks".
5 replies →
The root offense wasn’t that this was published. The root problem is that the author submitted an LLM hallucination as a story. He should have faced consequences even if it had been caught.
> This was an institutional error, not an individual reporter's fault.
The person who caused the problem is at fault. It doesn’t help to do mental gymnastics to try to shift blame to a faceless institution. The author is at fault.
> We should also be asking why he was still contributing when he had a high fever. Why did his editors push him to publish his work?
I think you’re putting too much stock into the excuse. The author got caught doing one of the things you cannot do as a journalist: Publishing fake quotes. He was looking for any way to excuse it and make it not his fault so he could try to keep his job.
He made the choice. The consequences are his to bear. If it had been caught before publishing he still should have faced the consequences.
Sadly this is a reality of the money disappearing from the journalism industry. You're right, there absolutely should be fact checkers. A reporter absolutely shouldn't be filing while sick. And the big news orgs still do that. But I doubt Ars has the resources.
> But I doubt Ars has the resources.
Ars is owned by Conde Nast, which is owned by Advance Publications. Ars's parents could have funded all these to ensure journalistic integrity, but would rather squeeze their staff and make money off the brand goodwill and advertising.
It is not a job of the editor to assume that the author is lying to you.
> This was an institutional error, not an individual reporter's fault.
Ah yes, "the system made me use AI".
More akin to not having code reviews in opinion. If the process isn't there you're just not picking up certain issues.
If the Ars Technica editorial process requires assuming reporters don't fabricate quotes, then their process is inadequate. That's like a software company letting junior engineers release directly to production with just a spellcheck and no real process to catch errors. Major publications like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc. have a dedicated fact-checking department that is part of the process and needs to give the ok before any article is published. Why is their process so deficient by comparison? Why wasn't there any fact checking?
> That's like a software company letting junior engineers release directly to production
This person wasn’t a junior.
Editorial processes don’t actually check every single line of everything that is written. Journalists are trusted to report accurately. This person demonstrated they could not be trusted.
> Why wasn't there any fact checking?
Why do programmers ever let any bugs get to production if they have code review? Journalistic outlets do not fact check literally every line that is ever written before it goes to publication.
2 replies →
The “system” should make it difficult to make mistakes.
But more importantly, why can’t both be at fault?
Having fact checkers review every articles you publish is a very low bar (as in you should not be in the business of publishing news if you can’t do it effectively).
As someone who worked as a newspaper copy editor for the first third of my career, "assume that the author is lying to you" was the entire job.
A lapse in that non-hypothetically left me responsible, and legally liable, in situations like this.