Journalist Accuses Ohio's Main Newspaper of Slapping Her Name on an AI "Express Desk" Article Without Her Knowledge, While She Was on Honeymoon

A journalist has accused Cleveland.com — the online home of The Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper — of publishing an article under her byline without her consent, knowledge, or approval. The article was generated by the “Cleveland.com Express Desk,” which “uses AI tools to assist in producing content” that the newspaper claims is “reviewed and edited by staff.”

In an X post on September 7, Cleveland.com government reporter Kaitlin Durbin said that she’d been away on her honeymoon when her employer published the AI article under her name.

The article — a local news story informing readers that the law director of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County was stepping down — had nothing to do with her reporting, Durbin said, and she “did not write or review a word of it” before it was published.

“Trying to understand how this story published with my byline last week while I was on my honeymoon. I did not write or review a word of it and it does not pull info from past reporting,” Durbin wrote. “Does Cleveland.com think they just own my name now?”

The article has been updated to remove Durbin’s name, and a correction notice has been added.

“Note: This story has been updated to correct the byline,” reads the correction. “A reporter’s byline was added to the story in error.”

Cleveland.com made waves back in February when its editor, Chris Quinn, published a letter to readers in which he addressed Cleveland.com‘s move to create an AI-powered news desk. The letter heralded AI as the “future” of journalism, and criticized journalism schools and job-seeking journalists for not going all-in on the tech.

“Artificial intelligence is not bad for newsrooms,” Quinn wrote in the letter. “It’s the future of them.” The editor further argued that AI was simply being used to expedite the work of real journalists, and would free them to do more reporting.

After this story was published, Quinn told Futurism that the byline blunder was “a simple mistake, the result of a miscommunication between a couple of editors.”

“It was corrected as soon as we learned of it from the Tweet,” Quinn continued, adding that he’s “written extensively about our policies, practices and controls regarding AI content in my From the Editor columns this year” and directing us to a post containing links to his statements on Cleveland.com’s AI policies. “If you’re looking for information about us, it’s all there,” said Quinn. “I have nothing to add.”

Leila Atassi, editor of public interest and advocacy at Cleveland.com and The Plain-Dealer, told the Columbia Journalism Review at the time that stories published by the newspaper’s AI news desk would still be the “work of a real reporter.”

“It’s real accountability,” Atassi continued. “AI is the assistant, but it’s not the journalist.”

The Cleveland.com story now carries no byline at all — except for “Cleveland.com Express Desk.”

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