How two major newspapers published a summer reading list with books that don’t exist

A popular feature that you’re likely to see in a major metropolitan newspaper this time of year is a summer reading List.

As folks get ready to head to the beaches or mountains for some downtime, they need some cool books to help with their rest and relaxation. So that’s when your local metro can help by tipping you off to the latest good reads from famous authors.

And if you are a reader of the Chicago Sun-Times or The Philadelphia Inquirer, you recently saw such a syndicated list of new books by famous authors, including Percival Everett, who won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and Andy Weir, who wrote “The Martian.”

One problem: The authors are real, but the books they supposedly wrote are not. Turns out, the list was generated by artificial intelligence. Of the 15 books, only five are real. The rest? Made up by AI.

Now, to be clear, the Sun-Times and Inquirer newsrooms were not responsible for the summer reading list. Victor Lim, marketing director for the Chicago Sun-Times’ parent company, Chicago Public Media, told NPR’s Elizabeth Blair that the list was licensed content provided by King Features, a unit of the publisher Hearst Newspapers.

On its Bluesky feed, the Sun-Times wrote, “We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon.”

And while the story had no byline, the person responsible for its publication took full responsibility for it. The writer, Marco Buscaglia, said the list was partially generated by AI, and in an email to NPR said, “Huge mistake on my part and has nothing to do with the Sun-Times. They trust that the content they purchase is accurate and I betrayed that trust. It's on me 100 percent."

Buscaglia told Jason Koebler of 404 Media, “I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses. On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed. … I assume I’ll be getting calls all day. I already am. This is just idiotic of me, really embarrassed. When I found it (online), it was almost surreal to see.”

Even though it was apparently a supplement (as opposed to actual editorial content produced by the newsroom), it does show the dangers of AI.

Tony Elkins, a member of Poynter’s faculty who co-authored Poynter’s AI ethics handbook, told me, “I can say with certainty that we all knew something like this was likely to happen. One of the prevailing themes is having a human in the loop. Generative AI has a lot of potential use cases, but we’re still in the experimentation phase. The technology simply hallucinates too much to grant it any amount of autonomy. What seemed to happen here, based on the reporting, is a human failure by a freelancer, and an organizational failure to ensure it knew how AI tools are being used.”

Unfortunately, even though they were not directly responsible for the content, the Sun-Times, in particular, ends up taking a bit of a PR hit.

Alex Mahadevan, director of Poynter’s MediaWise and a co-author of Poynter’s AI ethics handbook, told me, “I don’t even know where to start with this massive screw-up. Right when newsrooms are trying to build trust with audiences about legitimate ways they’re using AI, this guy comes in and derails it. We’ve been saying for years now that if you’re going to use AI to write something your readers will actually see, you have to have a human in the loop. You need to have a real editor fact-checking what comes out of these tools.”

He added, “Chatbots are notorious for hallucinating — making up — research papers. Let’s add authors to the list. And book titles.”

However, Mahadevan said he did have sympathy for the writer, adding, “I know that producing special sections solo is grueling, thankless work.”

Yet, even though the newsroom wasn’t responsible for the content, Mahadevan said, “I hope this is a lesson to newsrooms everywhere: You need to have AI ethics guidelines in place for all teams in the newsroom, not just the editorial side of things. You must do AI tools training — even for freelancers, as it appears the writer was. And you have to be thinking about these things before deploying AI tools! If the AI tool he used was built using retrieval-augmented generation — which grounds the chatbot’s answers in real, verifiable sources instead of relying on what it ‘remembers’ from training — the chance for error would have been much lower.”

Elkins offered this final thought: “I think we have to experiment and cannot let tech companies dictate how and when these tools are used. But that requires a significant investment in time and resources. Otherwise, we risk losing our audience's trust, and there’s no coming back from that.”

A MESSAGE FROM POYNTER

On the shelves

The new book about former President Joe Biden — “Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” written by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson — officially came out on Tuesday. It has been generating buzz for a while now, especially after early excerpts were released over the past week.

The book recalls the disastrous presidential debate between Biden and Donald Trump last June, when an American audience was stunned to see Biden in such a fragile state. Eleven minutes into the debate, CNN’s Dana Bash, who was moderating the debate with Tapper, slipped Tapper a note that simply said, “He just lost the election.”

She, of course, was talking about Biden.

Did Biden lose the election? Well, technically no. He dropped out of the race three weeks later. But his replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, would go on to lose to Trump. Many blame Biden for the Democrats losing the election because he stubbornly refused to drop out earlier, or that he decided to even run at all.

Much is revealed in the book about Biden’s diminished health, including that he would sometimes freeze up and not remember names, that his work hours were limited and, reportedly, that there were private discussions among staff that Biden might have to use a wheelchair at some point.

All this has generated the overall narrative that Biden’s condition was hidden by the staff closest to him, and that the media was either shrewdly kept in the dark and/or didn’t do a good enough job of digging into the truth about Biden’s health.

As often happens when there are tell-all books about politicians, the big question is about timing. When did the authors — in this case, Tapper and Thompson — learn about the things they wrote about when it came to Biden’s faculties? Tapper has said that 99% of what they learned came after the election. Tapper told the Los Angeles Times’ Stephen Battaglio, “If I learned about any of these stories in 2022, 2023 or 2024, I would have reported them in a second.”

On her podcast, former Fox News and NBC host Megyn Kelly pressed Tapper about his coverage of Biden’s presidency. Tapper said he interviewed Biden only while he was in office.

Kelly said, “You covered the Biden presidency aggressively throughout the four years, and you didn’t cover mental acuity, hardly at all. I mean, time and time again, when issues came up, you seem to be running cover for the president.”

Tapper said, “I don’t think that’s true.”

Like most of America, Tapper saw how bad things had become during the fateful presidential debate with Trump. Tapper told Battaglio, “It was just the painful realization that the White House had been lying to everyone, including likely, in many ways, to themselves. As bad as it was on TV, it was worse in person.”

Stepping back

Elon Musk is apparently taking a step back from politics. Or so he says. And by taking a step back, he means not writing big checks to political candidates.

Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk said, “I think, in terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future.”

When asked why, Musk said, “I think I’ve done enough.”

Musk donated $290 million of his own money to back Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. He also dumped millions into a Wisconsin Supreme Court campaign, but the candidate he backed lost badly — an embarrassing blow to Musk.

When asked if his decision to step back politically was partly due to all the “pushback” he has received from those critical of his role within the Trump administration, including overseeing massive federal cuts by his Department of Government Efficiency, Musk briefly paused and said, “Well, if I see a reason for political spending in the future, I will do it. I do not currently see a reason.”

This comes at a time when Musk is planning to take a step back from the Trump administration.

Later on Tuesday, Musk was a guest on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” with David Faber from the Tesla headquarters in Austin, Texas. The two talked much about Tesla’s robotaxis, but they did get into whether Musk’s governmental work impacted his Tesla business.

Musk said there were “pros and cons” and said he had no regrets about telling Faber two years ago that he would say what he wanted to say.

Musk told Faber, “I believe that we want to live in a free society where people are allowed to say what they want to say within reasonable bounds, like you know, you can't advocate for the murder of somebody, but free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy. That's why it's the First Amendment.”

Faber pointed out that Musk’s association with Trump, as well as his work with DOGE, has made him disliked by many. Faber then asked if it was all worth it.

Musk said, “Well, I mean, unfortunately, what I've learned is that legacy media propaganda is very effective at making people believe things that aren't true.”

When asked for an example by Faber, Musk said, “That I'm a Nazi, for example, and how many legacy media publications, talk shows, whatever, try to claim that I was a Nazi because of some random hand gesture at a rally where all I said was that my heart goes out to you, and I was talking about space travel, and yet the legacy media promoted that as though that was a deliberate Nazi gesture when, in fact, every politician, any public speaker who’s spoken for any length of time, has made the exact same gesture; and yet there’s still people out there — and I’ve never harmed a single person.”

Chuck Todd’s new gig

Here’s the trailer for Chuck Todd’s new venture: “Sunday Night with Chuck Todd.”

Each Sunday, the former “Meet the Press” moderator will interview Washington newsmakers from iconic spots — including restaurants and bars. The show will air on Noosphere.

In a statement, Todd said, “I could not be more excited about launching a new show with real conversations, in person, that cut through so much noise and loud opinion at a moment when it’s needed the most. The show offers us a chance to break out of both network studios and home-based Zoom calls, to where we can see people face to face in normal environments, and come to learn from one another what’s really happening in Washington DC at this crucial time.”

Headed toward home

ESPN’s “Around the Horn” wraps up its 23-year run this week, with the final episode of the sports debate show airing on Friday.

It has been the first half of ESPN’s 5 to 6 p.m. Eastern block known as “Happy Hour,” followed by the wildly successful and groundbreaking “Pardon the Interruption.” “ATH” features sports journalists from four locations around the country, giving their takes on the sports news of the day.

Tony Reali, who has been the host of “ATH” since 2004, has been making the media rounds over the past week — showing the glass-half-full optimism that he is known for, and yet clearly stung by ESPN’s decision to cancel the show. He was a guest on Dan Patrick’s show, as well as Pablo Torre’s podcast. He was featured in “People” magazine and a lengthy piece in Tuesday’s Washington Post by sports media columnist Ben Strauss.

The New York Post broke the story last summer that the show would be canceled sometime in early 2025. ESPN informed Reali of the decision in December. And no one is exactly sure, at least not publicly, why the show is being canceled.

When Strauss asked him why the show was being canceled, Reali said, “I don’t really have an answer for that.”

The ratings were solid, the show still had relevance, and, most of all, it was a great platform for diverse personalities and journalists — young and old and in between, as well as men and women from a wide range of races and backgrounds. At its heart, it was journalists — in the field, writing columns, breaking news, doing the interviews from inside the locker rooms — giving their well-informed opinions.

In the end, it might just be that the show simply ran its course.

Reali has been open about being surprised that the show was canceled, and, for a while, firmly believed that he could change the minds of the ESPN executives. He even offered to change the format.

He told Strauss, “You want games? I can do games! You don’t like the mute button? It’s gone. You want me to bring streamers? I can bring streamers!’ I wanted to put our heads together. But the message was just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Reali told Patrick he is a free agent come August. The 46-year-old almost certainly is going to end up in the good spot, maybe even on ESPN somewhere — if ESPN is smart. But it sounds as if his time at ESPN might be over.

That’s too bad. Reali seems like a first-class guy, and clearly a solid sports show host.

And it’s too bad “ATH” is going away. I’ve had a like-dislike relationship with the show since the beginning. I initially liked the odd format and that sportswriters were getting more airtime on TV. There was a time, however, when the show became overwhelmed with scalding hot takes for the sake of hot takes, as well as being slowed down by a barrage of statistics to back up those hot takes.

Eventually, and mainly because of Reali, the show settled into smart daily discussions about sports. The debates could be serious, smart, funny or silly depending on the topic. And, again, the strength aside from Reali came from the show’s diversity.

A run of 23 years is better than most shows, but it will be missed.

What’s next?

What is ESPN going to do with that 5 p.m. slot? One idea is expanding “Pardon the Interruption” from a half-hour to an hour.

But Strauss wrote, “For now, it will plug in a ‘SportsCenter.’ According to people familiar with the plans, the network approached Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon about doing an hour of ‘Pardon the Interruption.’ But the offer didn’t include much of a raise, which played a role in no deal getting done. The hour of PTI is mostly off the table now, but that show remains important to the network and executives intend to keep it running after Kornheiser and Wilbon retire.”

There has been some talk that Peter Schrager, who just joined ESPN from the NFL Network, could see some kind of role in that 5 p.m. slot.

One more ESPN note

ESPN aired its final “SportsCenter LA” Monday night. The Los Angeles-based “SportsCenter” had been on for 15 years.

The final sendoff was a montage of celebrity moments on the sportscast and it also included a final goodbye from anchors Linda Cohn, Stan Verrett and Neil Everett, the anchor who was with ESPN for 23 years before leaving in 2023.

Media tidbits

• The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler with “The New York Post judges The Fact Checker.”
• For Nieman Lab, Bill Adair interviews Richard Gingras, Google’s longtime global vice president for news: “Google’s chief emissary to the news business is stepping down — and looking back.”
• Wired’s Kate Knibbs with “Bluesky Is Plotting a Total Takeover of the Social Internet.”
• Axios’ Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn with “The Athletic is solidly profitable.”

Hot type

• For The New York Times Magazine, Joseph Bernstein with “My Father Prosecuted History’s Crimes. Then He Died in One.”
• For HuffPost, Heather Kristin with “My Experiences On 'Sex And The City' Left Me Reeling. A Recent Run-In With One Of Its Stars Left Me In Shock.”
• Sorry, but not sorry: I can’t get enough of this Bill Belichick and his 24-year-old girlfriend story. The latest is from The New York Times’ Katherine Rosman with “Bill Belichick Was Always in Control. Then He Fell for Jordon Hudson.” I found this passage from Rosman to be particularly spot-on: “At a moment when the world is contending with issues of worrisome consequence, the romantic saga of a famously grumpy N.F.L. coach and a recent college cheerleader is catnip for much of the public and, let’s be honest, reporters too.”

More resources for journalists

• New reporters: Get essential reporting techniques, effective storytelling methods, and newsroom navigation skills. Register today.
• Master trauma-informed interviewing and craft nuanced stories that portray mental health challenges with accuracy and dignity. Watch the replay of our webinar.
• Learn how to “lead your leaders” in this virtual intensive for journalism managers handling big responsibilities without direct reports. Apply today.
• Gain essential skills that protect your mental health while producing nuanced coverage that serves vulnerable communities. Enroll now.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

The Poynter Report is your daily dive into the world of media, packed with the latest news and insights. Get it delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday by signing up here. And don’t forget to tune into our biweekly podcast for even more.