LONDON: The New York Times has reportedly warned freelance staff about using artificial intelligence in their work.
According to news website Futurism, the warning followed “a string of AI controversies” that prompted the US newspaper to send a “periodic reminder” to freelancers about its AI policy.
“Freelance contributors must not submit any material for publication that contains content generated, modified or enhanced by (generative AI) tools, or that has been input into these tools,” the email said, according to Futurism.
The NYT has a strict policy on the use of AI tools. While in-house journalists have separate guidelines and approved generative AI tools, freelancers are barred from using such tools to draft, edit or rephrase copy.
The paper said contributors may use AI for “high-level” brainstorming, but any tool used to “create, draft, guide, clean up, edit, improve, or rephrase your writing” is strictly prohibited.
The email specifically listed chatbots, including Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT and Perplexity, AI-powered search products such as Google AI Overviews, and image generators, including Adobe Firefly, DALL-E and Midjourney, as forbidden.
The reminder comes amid a series of AI-related controversies, including preventable AI-generated errors appearing in the paper.
In March, the NYT faced scrutiny after a contributor to its “Modern Love” column was accused of using AI to generate an emotional personal essay. The writer later told Futurism that she had used chatbots to help conceptualize and edit the piece.
In a similar incident in April, the paper cut ties with a freelancer who admitted using AI to produce a book review that was later found to be riddled with plagiarism.
More recently, the paper came under renewed criticism earlier in May after a substantial correction revealed that an article by the NYT’s Canada bureau chief contained an AI-fabricated quote weeks after publication.
“An article on April 15 about the success that Mark Carney, the Liberal prime minister of Canada, has had in building cross-party alliances was updated after The Times learned that a remark attributed to Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, was in fact an AI-generated summary of his views about Canadian politics that AI rendered as a quotation,” read the update.
“The reporter should have checked the accuracy of what the AI tool returned.”
