This post has been updated with further information and a statement from our national content partner.
On Sunday, May 18, the print and e-paper editions of the Chicago Sun-Times included a special section titled the Heat Index: Your Guide to the Best of Summer, featuring a summer reading list, that our circulation department licensed from King Features, a unit of Hearst, one of our national content partners. The special section was syndicated to the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers.
To our great disappointment, that list was created through the use of an AI tool and recommended books that do not exist. We are actively investigating the accuracy of other content in the special section. We will provide more information on that investigation when we have more details.
What happened
The Chicago Sun-Times has committed its strong journalism resources to local coverage in the Chicago region. Our journalists are deeply focused on telling the stories of this city and helping connect Chicagoans with one another. We also recognize that many of our print readers turn to us for national and broader coverage beyond our primary focus on the Chicago region. We’ve historically relied on content partners, such as King Features, for syndicated materials to help supplement our work, including national articles as well as comics and puzzle books.
King Features worked with a freelancer who used an AI agent to help build out this special section. It was inserted into our paper without review from our editorial team, and we presented the section without any acknowledgement that it was from a third-party organization.
King Features released a statement to Chicago Public Media saying it has “a strict policy with our staff, cartoonists, columnists, and freelance writers against the use of AI to create content. The Heat Index summer supplement was created by a freelance content creator who used AI in its story development without disclosing the use of AI. We are terminating our relationship with this individual. We regret this incident and are working with the handful of publishing partners who acquired this supplement.”
We are in a moment of great transformation in journalism and technology, and at the same time our industry continues to be besieged by business challenges. This should be a learning moment for all journalism organizations: Our work is valued — and valuable — because of the humanity behind it.
At Chicago Public Media, we are proud of our credible, independent journalism, created for and by people. And part of the journalistic process is a commitment to acknowledging mistakes. It is unacceptable that this content was inaccurate, and it is equally unacceptable that we did not make it clear to readers that the section was produced outside the Sun-Times newsroom. Our audiences expect content with our name on it to meet our editorial standards.
What we are doing
- Subscribers will not be charged for this premium edition.
- The section has been removed from our e-paper version.
- We are updating our policies so that all our third-party licensed editorial content comply with our journalistic standards.
- Moving forward, we will explicitly identify third-party licensed editorial content and provide transparency about its origin.
- We are reviewing our relationship with our national content partners to avoid future mistakes of this nature.
We are committed to making sure this never happens again. We know that there is work to be done to provide more answers and transparency around the production and publication of this section, and will share additional updates in the coming days.
