The Irish Independent has removed recent opinion articles written by the journalist while seeking clarity\n<\/p>\n
Mr Vandermeersch used AI tools, including ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google Notebook, to give him \u201csummaries\u201d of issues he was researching for his newsletter and for a number of newspaper articles.<\/p>\n
These summaries involved \u201challucinations\u201d of quotes from prominent journalists, made up by the AI engines.<\/p>\n
An analysis by Dutch publication NRC, where Mr Vandermeersch was once editor-in-chief, found issues with several blog posts and a number of news art\u00adicles, including one in their own publication and one in the Irish Independent.<\/p>\n
Gert Ysebaert, CEO of Mediahuis, said: \u201cThis should never have happened. Within Mediahuis we apply strict rules for the use of AI, in which care, human control and transparency are crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that these principles were not followed is at odds with the standards we set and the promise to our readers that we guarantee reliable journalism. We are discussing this with Peter Vandermeersch and have decided to temporarily suspend him in his role as Fellow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Vandermeersch has been suspended from his role as the European media group\u2019s Fellow for Journalism and Society. He took up the role last October after stepping down as CEO in Ireland.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Mediahuis Ireland, publisher of the Irish Independent, said: \u201cWhile we clarify matters, we have removed a number of articles written by Mr Vandermeersch as Mediahuis Fellow, which were published on the Irish Independent online.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is particularly painful that I made precisely the mistake I have repeatedly warned colleagues about<\/p>\n
Mr Vandermeersch oversaw Mediahuis Ireland, publisher of the Irish Independent, Sunday Independent and Sunday World, for six years, between 2019 and 2025. He previously led NRC, which is also a Mediahuis title, for nine years.<\/p>\n
Explaining his actions, Mr Vandermeersch said: \u201cI summarised reports using AI tools and worked from those summaries, trusting they were accurate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn doing so, I wrongly put words into people\u2019s mouths, when I should have presented them as paraphrases. In some cases, it reflected my interpretation of their words. That was not just careless, it was wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is particularly painful that I made precisely the mistake I have repeatedly warned colleagues about: these language models are so good that they produce irresistible quotes you are tempted to use as an author.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I should have verified them. The necessary human oversight, which I consistently advocate, fell short.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue came to light when a journalist from NRC informed Mr Vandermeersch that he was unable to verify quotes used in Mr Vandermeersch\u2019s substack newsletter, Press And Democracy.<\/p>\n
The resulting NRC article claimed that quotes used in 15 out of 53 blog posts written by Mr Vandermeersch could not be substantiated or authenticated.<\/p>\n
The newspaper also claimed that seven individuals quoted by Mr Vandermeersch in different posts and articles told NRC that they had not made the statements attributed to them by the blogposts.<\/p>\n
These included the CEO of the Axel Springer German publishing group, Mathias Dopfner and Columbia Journalism Review writers, Matthew Ingram and Emily Bell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish Independent has removed recent opinion articles written by the journalist while seeking clarity Mr Vandermeersch used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,898,80],"class_list":["post-355192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}