AI usage seems to be running rampant in media. But your trusted news sources would never use AI, right? Wrong.
For example, The New York Times (Lean Left bias), considered by some to be the gold standard of journalism, has had at least two recent incidents of writers allegedly sneaking AI into their content.
Nearly 10% of all news in US newspapers “contains at least some text created by artificial intelligence (AI),” according to an Oct. 2025 report by University of Maryland computer scientists.
Publicly or privately, many major newsrooms are now using AI in some form or fashion, though often with strictly-stated guardrails. Here’s how major newsrooms say they are using (or not using) AI — and how some have broken protocol.
The New York Times
AI isn’t (explicitly) being used to write articles at The New York Times, according to its leadership. “Reporters are allowed to use AI to draft copy around published articles, such as SEO and headlines,” according to Zach Seward, the paper’s editorial director of AI initiatives.
Per Digiday, “Seward said he reminds editorial staff to ‘never trust output from an LLM. Treat it… with the same suspicion you would a source you just met and you don’t know if you could trust.’”
Apparently, not all writers are heeding that mandate.
The Wrap (Center bias) reported that the Times fired freelance opinion writer Alex Preston after he was discovered using AI to help draft a book review. Users noticed that Preston’s review was very similar to another book review published in The Guardian months before.
According to a Times spokesperson, the AI “produced similarities to a book review published in The Guardian” – similarities that then made it into Preston’s published piece. The spokesperson called it “a serious violation of The Times‘s integrity and fundamental journalistic standards.”
Another piece this week from The Atlantic (Left) noted how journalists and researchers flagged a Times opinion from November 2025 (not written by Preston) that was likely written with AI:
On Sunday, a writer named Becky Tuch posted an excerpt on X from a months-old New York Times “Modern Love”column that had given her pause. “I don’t want to falsely accuse writers” of using AI, she wrote. “But this reads EXACTLY like AI slop.” The excerpt—from an essay by a mother who had lost custody of her son—described the son’s feelings, at one point, toward his mother: “Not hate. Not anger. Just the flat finality of a heart too tired to keep trying.”
Among the 100-plus replies to Tuch’s post was one by an AI researcher, Tuhin Chakrabarty. He’d run the snippet from “Modern Love” through an AI-detection tool from the start-up Pangram Labs, which flagged it as likely having been AI-generated.
Newsweek
Newsweek (Center) is “making generative AI a fixture in its newsroom,” according to Nieman Lab (Center).
The outlet began permitting writers to use generative AI writing back in 2023, saying it “believes that AI tools can help journalists work faster, smarter and more creatively.”
“I think that the difference between newsrooms that embrace AI and newsrooms that shun AI is really going to prove itself over the next several months and years,” Newsweek Editor-in-chief Jennifer Cunningham told Nieman. “We have really embraced AI as an opportunity, and not some sort of bogeyman that’s lurking in the newsroom.”
According to Newsweek’s website, its writers must use AI tools “in an ethical way and under the full supervision of journalists at every step of the process from conceptualizing an article to researching it, producing it and publishing it.”
The Washington Times
The Washington Times (Lean Right) is one of the first major US news outlets to explicitly use AI as a “writer” in its newsroom. Some of the outlet’s articles are topped with a byline of, “The Washington Times AI News Desk,” rather than the standard mention of a human writer’s name.
“All published reports, whether written entirely by journalists, created with AI assistance, or generated by AI and edited by our team, undergo [sic] rigorous review and approval by our experienced editors and newsroom leadership. Final editorial decisions rest with humans, not algorithms,” the outlet says on its “AI Policy” page.
The Guardian
“GenAI tools are exciting but are currently unreliable,” The Guardian (Lean Left) said about its approach to generative AI. “There is no room for unreliability in our journalism, nor our marketing, creative and engineering work. At a simple level, this means that the use of genAI requires human oversight and control.”
“We will seek to use genAI tools editorially only where this contributes to the creation and distribution of original journalism. We will guard against the dangers of bias embedded within generative tools and their underlying training sets. Guardian audiences can be confident that our journalists remain accountable and responsible for the journalism we produce.”
Fox News
Fox News (Right) is one of the few major news websites that hasn’t published an explainer of how it uses AI in its newsroom. But it seems to be using AI to help produce news, at least in some capacity.
Fox News Digital president and editor-in-chief Porter Berry told Axios (Lean Left) that Fox is working with AI company Palantir “to build a suite of custom AI newsroom tools alongside its journalists.”
Per Axios:
“Fox News and Palantir have built three main tools to improve efficiency. The first, ‘topic radar,’ helps reporters quickly get up to speed on a particular story through a custom briefing.
The second, ‘text editor,’ is a word processor-like tool that evaluates copy for style and efficiency, like checking for broken links and adherence to Fox News' style guide.
The third, ‘article insights,’ analyzes the performance of Fox News digital articles to provide insights into how the stories could be optimized or improved.
Like most newsrooms, Fox News won't use AI to generate editorial copy, Berry said. ‘This is a human end-to-end process and in the middle is AI.’”
Reuters
According to Reuters’ (Center bias) website, “Reuters journalists at times use generative Artificial Intelligence as one of the tools in our reporting, writing, editing, production and publishing. When we rely primarily or solely on generative AI to produce news content, we clearly disclose this use, providing context about how we have used the tool.”
The outlet is also “experimenting with using an AI agent to speed up its video production process,” according to Digiday.
Associated Press
“AP utilizes a suite of AI-driven tools to analyze video content and facilitate the creation of shotlists,” according to the Solutions section of AP’s (Left bias) website. “All generated descriptions are reviewed by editorial staff and edited as needed before publication.”
According to leaked internal messages first reported by Semafor, some leaders at AP think resisting AI is wasted effort:
“Because local newsrooms are so strapped, they are turning for assistance on the news making process in every direction. Advance Publications got there first, others will follow,” AP Senior Product Manager for AI Aimee Rinehart wrote in internal company Slack messages first shared with Semafor, referring to the Plain Dealer’s parent company. “Resistance is futile.”
“This internal discussion among staffers from different departments doesn’t reflect the overall position of the AP regarding the use of AI,” the AP told Semafor in a statement. “We’ve been an industry leader in setting AI standards that safeguard the vital role of journalists, while also allowing for AI use for things like language translation, summarizations, transcriptions and content tagging.”
Bloomberg
Some Bloomberg (Lean Left) articles now begin with an AI-generated “Takeaways by Bloomberg AI” section.
In a 2023 post, the outlet explains its confidence in using AI systems to support its journalism:
“While AI continues to fall short of human intelligence in many applications, there are areas where it vastly outshines the performance of human agents. Machines can identify trends and patterns hidden across millions of documents, and this ability improves over time. Machines also behave consistently, in an unbiased fashion, without committing the kinds of mistakes that humans inevitably make.”
How to Spot AI Writing
AI is rapidly reshaping journalism. As AllSides’ Gabe Spathelf (Center) wrote, the tech “has proven itself a tool for efficiency, writing, creating content, and so many more productive ways, however its more malicious uses have included emotional manipulation, deep fake proliferation, and widespread confusion and mistrust.”
There are several tools that claim to reliably flag signs of AI in any text you feed it. One is Pangram, which, as noted in The Atlantic article mentioned above, was used to accuse the Times opinion section of using AI.
Pangram describes itself as accurate “99.98%” of the time. In our experience, it’s hard to say exactly how reliable these tools are, so having your own checklist is important. Here’s a good list of ways to spot AI writing, via Forbes (Center):
- Asking and answering rhetorical questions
- Dashes everywhere – way – too – many
- Constant triplet framing: “Fast, cheap, and out of control.”
These three are common writing tactics for humans as well. But excess usage is often a giveaway that the writer used AI.
These next two are more egregious, and even if they’re not a sign of unchecked AI, they indicate poor journalistic ethics:
- Implying universal authority without sourcing
- EX: “Studies show that storytelling is 22 times more memorable than facts.”
- Which studies? From where?
- EX: “Studies show that storytelling is 22 times more memorable than facts.”
- Including quotes without attribution
- Quotes MUST be attributed. Otherwise, readers are left to question who said it (and whether it’s even a real quote).
Media literacy now requires inoculating yourself against unchecked AI usage. Read about the limited ways the AllSides content team is experimenting with AI tools.
Did we miss any? Do you suspect some sources that we didn’t mention are using AI without proper disclosure? Send us an email.
Henry A. Brechter is the Editor-in-chief of AllSides. He has a Center bias.
Reviewed by Julie Mastrine, Director of Bias Ratings (Lean Right), and Emily Allen, News and Social Media Editor (Left).
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