Three years ago, Sports Illustrated journalists became concerned that the venerable magazine’s new owners and operators were significantly lowering its standards. They focused on reporting plagiarism and were concerned about substandard writing and the use of freelance reporters who did little due diligence. Journalists also wanted better pay, more transparency in the hiring process and guarantees that all work published on Sports Illustrated’s website is edited.
Things don’t seem to have improved since then.
On Monday, science and technology publication Futurism reported that Sports Illustrated published product reviews under fake author names and included fake author bios. Futurism could not find any evidence that the alleged author was real, and the photo with the biography could be found on a website that sells artificial intelligence-generated headshots. Futurist also raised the possibility that artificial intelligence generated the words in the review.
“If true, these actions violate everything we believe about journalism,” the union representing Sports Illustrated journalists said in a statement. stated in a statement After the report was published. “We regret that we were involved in such a disrespectful act towards our readers.”
Arena Group, which publishes Sports Illustrated under a complex management structure, blamed the situation on its vendor, Adbon Commerce. Sports Illustrated licenses product reviews from his AdVon, which told Arena Group that “all articles in question were written and edited by humans,” an Arena Group spokesperson said. says Rachael Fink. She added that AdVon “forced writers to use pens or pseudonyms on certain articles to protect author privacy.”
Arena is currently ending its partnership with AdVon and investigating AdVon’s assurances that no artificial intelligence is used to write its articles.
Arena said AdVon used “both anti-plagiarism and anti-AI software.” But AdVon markets itself to potential customers as a company deeply involved in artificial intelligence. AdVon says on LinkedIn that he develops machine learning and artificial intelligence for e-commerce. On AdVon co-founder and CEO Ben Faw’s candidacy for the Harvard Alumni Association Board, he similarly explains that AdVon uses machine learning and artificial intelligence. Masu.
Mr. Fau did not respond to requests for comment.
For more than half a century, Sports Illustrated has been the standard-bearer for sports journalism. It was home to sportswriting giants like Frank Deford and Dan Jenkins, and photographers like Walter Ios and Jim Drake. From Muhammad Ali to Nao Osaka, being on the cover of magazines and winning Sportsman of the Year awards (later known as Sportsperson of the Year) were the hallmarks of stardom. The magazine’s highly informative swimsuit issue arrived like cultural thunder every year.
At its peak, Sports Illustrated had a circulation of over 3 million copies. But the magazine has struggled to adapt to the digital age. Monday’s revelations are just the latest sign of turmoil at Sports Illustrated, exacerbated by the site’s relentless pursuit of involvement with non-journalistic organizations.
“If you look at the history of magazines, there’s just been a series of bad editorial decisions,” said the journalist and author of “The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine,” published in 1997. says Michael McCambridge, author of
In 2019, media conglomerate Meredith sold the Sports Illustrated intellectual property to Authentic Brands Group. Also, he sold his 10-year publishing license for Sports Illustrated to TheMaven, which subsequently rebranded as Arena Group. Arena pays Authentic Brands $15 million a year for the rights to run Sports Illustrated, according to financial documents.
Authentic Brands’ business model revolves around acquiring down-on-their-luck or bankrupt fashion brands, such as Brooks Brothers, Aeropostal, and Forever 21, and then ceasing commitment to their legacy, cutting costs and increasing their visibility. The idea is to run a brand based on
The Sports Illustrated brand is attached to nutritional supplements, and Authentic Brands’ CEO once envisioned a Sports Illustrated-branded medical clinic.
Since 2019, Sports Illustrated has undergone repeated layoffs and reduced circulation of its print magazine. Hundreds of sites dedicated to individual teams are run by non-staff writers who pay small fees and are created with little oversight, making it difficult to understand what Sports Illustrated is. I was diluting the meaning of writing.
Sports Illustrated’s problems began before Authentic Brands and Arena. Under its original owner, Time Inc., the publication known for its sports photography underwent layoffs, including its last remaining staff photographer, and changed from a weekly to a monthly magazine.
But management by Authentic Brands and Arena was particularly shaky. Arena’s options for generating revenue are somewhat limited, as Authentic Brands holds the rights to the Sports Illustrated brand, which facilitates daily story leaks. Employees have publicly complained that Arena has ignored concerns about the quality of articles and a lack of editors, which was exacerbated by the layoffs of 17 staffers in February, while writers are given weekly A quota is imposed.
Last month, newspaper publisher Gannett found itself in a situation very similar to Sports Illustrated. Product reviews on Reviewed, a site Gannett owns, looked suspiciously like non-human articles, and no one working at Reviewed was aware of the purported authors. A Gannett spokesperson said the article was “created by third-party freelancers hired by the marketing agency’s partners, not by AI.” His marketing agency partner was AdVon.
Ohio’s G/O Media, CNET, and The Columbus Dispatch have also experienced controversy related to publishing articles written by computers without proper human oversight. The Associated Press, whose policies are often adopted as standard across the news industry, recently announced its own artificial intelligence guidelines. They say any output from AI tools “should be treated as unvetted source material” and that the Associated Press will not use images generated by artificial intelligence.