By Tristan Weisenbach
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Last month, I collaborated with Staff Writer Maia Venuti on a story outlining our opinion on a recent Vanity Fair magazine article. The magazine’s story related to YouTuber Colleen Ballinger (also known as Miranda Sings) and the growing controversy surrounding alleged inappropriate behavior between her and her fans, some of whom were minors at the time.
Our story, titled “OPINION: Vanity Fair sets an example of how not to cover internet controversy,” described the reporting done by Vanity Fair as shameful, as the magazine failed to reach out to anyone besides Ballinger’s own legal team for their article. Vanity Fair also ridiculed other media outlets like HuffPost and Rolling Stone for reporting on claims that it says have not “been interrogated” enough (despite Vanity Fair seemingly not attempting to interrogate them either).
While The Signal’s story was the opinion of Venuti and I, it did not stop at least one other news site from publishing a story about the same thing — in almost word-for-word detail as ours.
Newsbreak, a site that describes itself as “the nation’s leading local news app,” published an article shortly after The Signal, titled “Editorial’s Perspective: Vanity Fair’s Missteps in Covering Internet Scandal.” The story’s author was named “Student News” and the format of the story was seemingly identical to that of The Signal’s. However, nowhere throughout their story was our article mentioned or cited, except for one link at the very end of the webpage.
The bottom of Newsbreak’s story also had a statement that said “this post includes content abridged or formatted by AI tools.” It was clear that their story was not written by a human — it was rewritten and published by an artificial intelligence program.
The increasing reliance on AI tools throughout various industries has created many new challenges and unexpected effects. For example, actors and screenwriters in Hollywood are currently on strike, in part to protest the use of AI in filmmaking that could take away some of their jobs.
It is clear that this use of AI is dangerous in journalism too, as it can allow media outlets to slightly reword an original story by someone else and claim it as their own. It allows media outlets to publish what they can consider their own story while potentially avoiding any legal threats for plagiarism.
The Signal does not condone the use of AI in this way, and we are grateful that, after our written request, Newsbreak has removed their article from its website.
