AI is rapidly transforming journalism, but the extent of its use in published newspaper articles remains unclear. We address this gap by auditing a large-scale dataset of 186K articles from online editions of 1.5K American newspapers published in the summer of 2025. Using Pangram, a state-of-the-art AI detector, we discover that approximately 9% of newly-published articles are either partially or fully AI-generated. This AI use is unevenly distributed, appearing more frequently in smaller, local outlets, in specific topics such as weather and technology, and within certain ownership groups. We also analyze 45K opinion pieces from Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, finding that they are 6.4 times more likely to contain AI-generated content than news articles from the same publications, with many AI-flagged op-eds authored by prominent public figures. Despite this prevalence, we find that AI use is rarely disclosed: a manual audit of 100 AI-flagged articles found only five disclosures of AI use. Overall, our audit highlights the immediate need for greater transparency and updated editorial standards regarding the use of AI in journalism to maintain public trust.
AI use in American newspapers is widespread, uneven, and rarely disclosed
AI is rapidly transforming journalism, but the extent of its use in published newspaper articles remains unclear. We address this gap by auditing a large-scale dataset of 186K articles from online editions of 1.5K American newspapers published in the summer of 2025. Using Pangram, a state-of-the-art AI detector, we discover that approximately 9% of newly-published articles are either partially or fully AI-generated. This AI use is unevenly distributed, appearing more frequently in smaller, local outlets, in specific topics such as weather and technology, and within certain ownership groups. We also analyze 45K opinion pieces from Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, finding that they are 6.4 times more likely to contain AI-generated content than news articles from the same publications, with many AI-flagged op-eds authored by prominent public figures. Despite this prevalence, we find that AI use is rarely disclosed: a manual audit of 100 AI-flagged articles found only five disclosures of AI use. Overall, our audit highlights the immediate need for greater transparency and updated editorial standards regarding the use of AI in journalism to maintain public trust.
Report: AI Use in Newspapers Is Widespread, Uneven… | Maryland Today
UMD Computer Scientists, Private Firms Examine News and Opinion Pages in U.S. Media
Artificial Intelligence in the News: How AI Retools, Rationalizes, and Reshapes Journalism and the Public Arena
<p>Download the pdf here. Executive Summary Despite growing interest, the effects of AI on the news industry and our information environment — the public arena — remain poorly understood. Insufficient attention has also been paid to the implications of the news industry’s dependence on technology companies for AI. Drawing on 134 interviews with news workers […]</p>
How AI Is Creeping Into The New York Times
Artificial intelligence seems to be turning up, undisclosed, in the opinion pages of major news publications.
AI in journalism: Live tracker of scandals and mistakes
AI in journalism: Live tracker of mistakes and mishaps from the Mississippe Free Press to the New York Times.
Business Insider
Business Insider sees AI as a valuable tool. Newsroom staff may employ approved AI tools to assist with drafting, transcription, research, data analysis, fact-checking, and more. There is always human oversight when our journalists use AI, and they are responsible for the accuracy, fairness, originality, and overall quality of everything we publish. We also use AI for some automated products without human oversight, such as our search tool and audio briefing. We transparently label any products or content fully generated by AI. The technology, industry standards, and the law around AI are all evolving, and our thinking on this may evolve over time.
AI Policy • States Newsroom
AI Policy States Newsroom is, above all, dedicated to journalism practiced by people. We believe in the power of having on-the-ground reporters covering our communities with the finesse and nuance that only human interaction can produce. We also recognize the power and potential of generative AI. We are open to the responsible and transparent use […]
Use of AI to Get News in U.S. Is Rare
Fewer than one in 10 Americans use artificial intelligence tools to get news and information.
AI News Audit: AI, Canadian Journalism, and Paths for Policy Action — Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy
March 16, 2026 - AI companies built their products using Canadian journalism without permission and without compensation, and are now delivering that journalism to consumers as their own product. Existing copyright and media policy frameworks were not designed to address this. In February and Marc
Google News Is Boosting Garbage AI-Generated Articles
404 Media reviewed multiple examples of AI rip-offs making their way into Google News. Google said it doesn't focus on how an article was produced—by an AI or human—opening the way for more AI-generated articles.
An AI Upheaval Is Coming for Media. This Journalist Is Already All In.
AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the second half of 2025. Most are written by Nick Lichtenberg.
We Talked to a Writer Accused of Publishing An AI-Generated Essay in The New York Times
She was accused of publishing AI slop in The New York Times. She says she didn't use AI to generate content — but did use AI to get published.
The Real Money In Modern ‘Journalism’ Now Involves Filling The Internet With ‘AI’-Generated Garbage
Last year both Gannett and Sports Illustrated were caught creating fake, “AI” generated journalists to create fake, plagiarism and mistake-prone “journalism.” In both instances …
The AI Industry Is Lying To You
Hi! If you like this piece and want to support my independent reporting and analysis, why not subscribe to my premium newsletter? It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5000 to 18,000 words, including
Policies Permitting LLM Use for Polishing Peer Reviews Are Currently Not Enforceable
A number of scientific conferences and journals have recently enacted policies that prohibit LLM usage by peer reviewers, except for polishing, paraphrasing, and grammar correction of otherwise human-written reviews. But, are these policies enforceable? To answer this question, we assemble a dataset of peer reviews simulating multiple levels of human-AI collaboration, and evaluate five state-of-the-art detectors, including two commercial systems. Our analysis shows that all detectors misclassify a non-trivial fraction of LLM-polished reviews as AI-generated, thereby risking false accusations of academic misconduct. We further investigate whether peer-review-specific signals, including access to the paper manuscript and the constrained domain of scientific writing, can be leveraged to improve detection. While incorporating such signals yields measurable gains in some settings, we identify limitations in each approach and find that none meets the accuracy standards required for identifying AI use in peer reviews. Importantly, our results suggest that recent public estimates of AI use in peer reviews through the use of AI-text detectors should be interpreted with caution, as current detectors misclassify mixed reviews (collaborative human-AI outputs) as fully AI generated, potentially overstating the extent of policy violations.
People are getting their news from AI – and it’s altering their views
Even when information is factually accurate, how it’s presented can introduce subtle biases. As large language models increasingly bring people the news, this bias is a looming problem.
