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Jacquelyn Martin

Staffers at Reviewed, a USA Today-owned website <a href="https://reviewed.usatoday.com/" target=_blank>devoted to shopping recommendations</a>, were about to end their workday Friday when one of them noticed something strange:

Articles were publishing on the site by writers none of them had ever heard of — and using <a href="https://twitter.com/nyguild/status/1716840703098057020" target=_blank>suspiciously similar</a> language.

Jaime Carrillo, a senior staff writer, couldn’t figure out where the reviews — for products like insulated drink tumblers and scuba gear — were coming from. “I stayed at my desk for the next hour, just kind of panicking over this new website that none of us had a hand in,” he said.

The reviews were so vague about the products they were purportedly reviewing that Carrillo and his colleagues started to suspect they had been produced by artificial intelligence.

Worse, some of the authors didn’t appear to exist.

Not only were Reviewed staffers unfamiliar with the bylines on the stories — names like “Breanna Miller” and “Avery Williamson” — they were unable to find evidence of writers by those names on LinkedIn or any professional websites.

Reviewed’s employees, who are unionized through the NewsGuild of New York, allege that the articles are a covert attempt by parent company Gannett to undermine workers, at a time when many publishers are experimenting with AI content to cut costs.

Carrillo, a shop steward for the union, said the mysterious reviews — which appeared just weeks after staff <a href="https://www.nyguild.org/post/breaking-gannetts-reviewed-union-walks-out-on-prime-day" target="_blank">staged</a> a one-day walkout to demand management negotiate on a new contract — harm the reputations of actual employees.

“It’s gobbledygook compared to the stuff that we put out on a daily basis,” he said. “None of these robots tested any of these products.”

The Reviewed controversy comes as many media organizations ramp up product review sites, such as the New York Times-owned Wirecutter, which get a cut on sales made through online retailers like Amazon that their stories link to. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)

But Gannett insists the articles weren’t AI-generated. In a statement to The Post, a spokesperson said the articles — many of which have now been deleted — were created through a deal with a marketing firm to generate paid search-engine traffic. While Gannett concedes the original articles “did not meet our affiliate standards,” officials deny they were written by AI.

“We expect all our vendors to comply with our ethical standards and have been assured by the marketing agency the content was NOT AI generated,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Ben Faw, CEO of AdVon Commerce, the marketing firm that did the work, referred questions about the content to Gannett.

Reviewed staffers point to a number of clues that suggest AI was indeed involved. Many articles followed a similar template: The first sentence of the scuba masks story, for example, noted that there were “several important factors to consider” in buying a mask, while the review of insulated drink tumblers opened by noting “there are many factors to consider” before buying a tumbler.

Meanwhile, AdVon Commerce is open about its use of AI. On its LinkedIn page, the company says it uses “AI solutions for E Commerce.”

A Gannett spokesperson took issue with the Guild claim that the writers weren’t real people, pointing to the LinkedIn page of one AdVon Commerce writer whose name appeared on a Reviewed article. At the top of his account, that writer touted his experience in “polishing AI generative text.”

This isn’t the first time Gannett has found itself answering embarrassing questions about AI practices. In August, Gannett attempted to automate high school sports coverage at some of its papers with AI-generated articles, only to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/09/22/ai-news-reporting-mistakes/" target="_blank">pull the experiment after it produced error-ridden stories</a>.

The Post was unable to verify that several of the purported writers of the Reviewed content actually exist, even after using database searches for the towns where they claimed to live. Someone using the “Breanna Miller” alias also wrote product-review articles using an identical biographical description for newspapers owned by the McClatchy newspaper chain.

Those reviews and several others for McClatchy under different bylines listed a common email address, but The Post was unable to locate any of those writers either. Personal email addresses were also provided with those reviews, but emails from The Post bounced back with a message indicating there was no such inbox. A McClatchy spokesperson said the chain is investigating whether the reviews violated their guidelines.

“Our guidelines for sponsored and affiliate content partners require that bylines state the writer’s real name, not pseudonyms,” the McClatchy spokesperson said in an email.

Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America

Georgetown University, BS in International Politics

Will Sommer is a media reporter for the Style section. He's the author of "Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America," a book covering the QAnon movement.

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The Media - The Washington Post

Coverage of the media industry from The Washington Post. The latest headlines and breaking news on cable news networks and the influence of digital media

Style - The Washington Post

Style is the source for breaking news and trending topics on fashion, culture, and anything of interest. You’ll find in-depth coverage of the media and entertainment including the latest in movies, music and tv.