A song to read by: “That Life,” by Unknown Mortal Orchestra (my most-listened song of the year, per my Spotify Wrapped)

What I’m reading: “Time’s Arrow,” by Martin Amis

Published this week

— Publishers Disguising Gen AI Content Risk Commercial and Reputational Blowback

— BuzzFeed Inc. Granted Extension on Nasdaq Delisting

— With Its Novel Affiliate Model, The Sporting News Bets on Lifetime Value

— Paste Magazine Acquires Jezebel From G/O Media in All-Cash Deal

— The News Movement Nets 7-Figure Revenue After First Year in the US

On my mind

I wrote a number of stories this past week, but the one I was the most passionate about was, by far, my analysis of the growing number of publishers using generative artificial intelligence to produce stories but disguising that they did so.

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, the technology publisher Futurism published yet another story detailing its discovery that Sports Illustrated had been using GenAI to produce stories, then creating fake author profiles and publishing the stories under the bylines. Feel free to read that twice.

Sports Illustrated naturally denied the accusation, saying it worked with an outside vendor, called AdVon, which was responsible for the mix-up. 

This was not an isolated incident: Futurism has similarly outed CNET, from Red Ventures, for doing effectively the same thing. Both have denied wrongdoing.

After reading the story, my first thought was: Thank god for Futurism. Honestly. Without them doing this reporting, how would anyone know this was happening? (The Verge and The New York Times have picked up similar stories, this time around Reviewed, from Gannett.)

The more I thought about the issue, the more the situation reminded me of the early 20th century, when Teddy Roosevelt created the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in response to growing concern over the poor quality of products being sold to the American consumer. 

(Not to aggrandize Futurism too much, but Roosevelt was compelled to act, in part, by “The Jungle,” an account of the horrid working conditions of the Chicago meat processing industry, written by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair himself was a journalist, who had reported on the issue for a socialist newspaper after spending seven weeks undercover. Talk about an impact point!)

Although reading an article produced by GenAI and eating a sausage laced with arsenic are clearly vastly different, they strike me as fundamentally similar in that they are consumer protection issues. People deserve to know what they are consuming, full stop.

So I think that it is appropriate for me to say that after reading the Futurism story, I was disgusted. To use GenAI is one thing — to disguise its use is another. 

These companies have shirked responsibility for their actions in a variety of ways, with most claiming that they were unaware of the issue. 

When I told the media analyst Eunice Shin this, she responded, incredulously, “That was their defense?” To avoid blame by saying you were unaware of what you were publishing on your own website does not inspire confidence. Is that that not, like, your whole job? 

Fundamentally, it shows a disregard for the reader — the consumer of this content — that I found hard to stomach. 

To create fake author profiles, replete with bogus details about what hobbies the writers enjoy in their free time, and then use GenAI to generate content and act as if this made-up human wrote the story? What other word am I supposed to use for that? That is deception. It is clear-eyed, fully intended deceit. 

Unfortunately for consumers, at the moment there is no FDA for GenAI. What these companies did is perfectly legal. 

But is it moral? Does it violate ethical principles so basic that even a toddler could tell you this is wrong? Absolutely. 

I have a lot of sympathy — trust me — for how hard it is to run a media company. I ran one for almost four years and I report on them every day now. Money is hard to come by, and the pressure to keep the lights on will lead to you try almost anything once.

But this clearly does not pass the smell test. This was passing off rat meat as pork sausage. I cannot fathom how someone gives this idea the green light and feels good about it.

So again, thank God for Futurism. Hopefully some legislation is on its way that will require AI-generated content to be labeled as such. People deserve to make an informed choice about what they consume, and right now they are fundamentally unable to do that. 

And if you, as a media company, feel comfortable in deceiving your readers in this kind of fashion, I would think long and hard about why you are in this industry. The level of condescension that this shows is unsettling. 

The week that was

This last week was, to put it mildly, busy! I ended publishing five stories, two which — the news of G/O Media selling Jezebel to Paste Magazine and BuzzFeed being granted a stay of execution on its Nasdaq delisting — were breaking items.

It was also a bit of a hard week at Adweek, as there were a handful of layoffs, including our editorial director Chris Ariens, who had been at the company for 16 years. One of our most talented young reporters, and a great friend of mine, Emmy Liederman, also had her last day on Wednesday, as she is leaving to join a creator economy company.

As can often be the case in a newsroom, this somber news mixed with the rush of chasing stories, leaving me feeling both elated and despondent at the same time. 

Compounding the emotional cocktail, there is also a small sense of budding optimism about the company: Our new CEO, Will Lee, added two key C-suite hires this week, chief content officer Zoë Ruderman and chief revenue officer Drew Schutte, both of whom come with steller pedigrees. Will, whom I had lunch with on Wednesday, seems to have a clear vision for the future of the company, and it is heartening to see the beginnings of it coming together.

And as if my heart could take any more emotional extremes, this weekend was a bacchanal for college football. I spent my Friday night and most of Saturday glued to the television, as my beloved University of Texas Longhorns needed to win — and several other teams to lose — in order to make the College Football Playoff.

I will spare you the details, but a string of miracles occurred and the Horns, by the skin of their teeth, made the Playoff and will be playing the University of Washington in New Orleans on Jan. 1. The matchup has a particular poignancy for me, as my mom works at the University of Washington, and she and my dad both went to school there. They attend nearly every home Huskies game, and I have been to a few when visiting them. 

We had joked a few weeks back, as the CFP picture was growing clearer, that if UT and UW ended up playing each other in the Playoff, that we might have to consider going. And now … we are doing just that! (Considering it, that is. The prices on these tickets, man!) 

Sorry for talking about football, but I had to share. It has been a week of high highs and low lows. 

It was also filled with people — on Tuesday I interviewed Rich Kleiman, the CEO of Boardroom, and I got to tell him (he had to listen) to my story of running into Kevin Durant at a hamburger joint in Austin and unashamedly asking for a picture. (This was during the 2011 NBA lockout, and Durant had been practicing with the UT basketball team. I was a sophomore!) Later that evening, I got drinks with Rico Ripoly, Dave Beauboeuf and Jeremy Adler at Upland Workshop. 

And on Wednesday, after the Adweek team went to going-away drinks for Emmy, she, I and my friend and Adweek social media guru Sami Lambert went to an event for New York Magazine.

The magazine was unveiling a new collaborative clothing line with Knickerbocker, an independent clothing brand here in New York that I love, that was spearheaded by the Vox Media licensing director LiQuan Hunt. At the event I chatted with a handful of folks, including fellow media reporters Max Tani and Kerry Flynn. The whole thing took on a bit of grim shading, however, as the next day Vox Media announced a round of layoffs. (You would be surprised how often that happens.)

As fate would have it, I ended up running into Max again Saturday night, along with friends and reporters Manny Fidel and Mia DeGraaf, at a show in Bushwick. I myself had been out that evening with a few other Adweek friends, including the inestimable Colin Daniels and Annie Hildebrand. 

If it sounds like a lot, it was! But I am trying to pack everything in, as I am leaving to Seattle for the rest of December at the end of this upcoming week. I should be back — hopefully with a stopover in New Orleans! — in the new year. 

One good rumor

Speaking of Vox Media, I heard that when PMC invested $100 million in the company for a 20% ownership stake in February, there might have been some serious strings attached. If you are reading this and have any specifics regarding said strings, I am all ears.

Some good readin’

— The best thing I read in a week in which I read a lot of really great things! This is a blast, though a bit heady. (Harper’s Magazine)

— I went on a bit of a David Foster Wallace kick this week, rereading some of my favorite articles of his, after I was sent this story, written by the poet Gale Walden. The two had an on-again off-again relationship for more than a decade, and the piece is fascinating. (London Review of Books)

— If there is a God I will eat at this restaurant one day. (Grub Street)

— I am fully aware of the cognitive dissonance required for me to fawn over football earlier in this newsletter and then share this story about troubling new CTE findings, but I contain multitudes. This is Capital S Scary Stuff. (The New York Times)

Cover image: "Automobile in corsa,” by Giacomo Balla