Cleveland.com Published an AI Article Under a Reporter's Byline While She Was on Her Honeymoon

Cleveland.com, the online home of Ohio's largest newspaper The Plain Dealer, published an AI-generated article under reporter Kaitlin Durbin's byline while she was on her honeymoon — without her knowledge, consent, or review. The story covered a local official's resignation and had no connection to Durbin's reporting beat. "I did not write or review a word of it and it does not pull info from past reporting," she wrote on X. "Does Cleveland.com think they just own my name now?"

The paper's editor, Chris Quinn, called it "a simple mistake, the result of a miscommunication between a couple of editors," and said it was corrected once staff saw Durbin's tweet. The byline has since been removed and replaced with "Cleveland.com Express Desk." The incident lands at an awkward moment: Quinn had published a letter earlier this year calling AI "the future" of newsrooms, and an editor told the Columbia Journalism Review that AI-assisted stories would still reflect "real accountability" because "AI is the assistant, but it's not the journalist."