The New York Times (NYT) terminated a freelance journalist’s contract after acknowledging that artificial intelligence (AI) had been used in a review column it published. Editors found passages in the piece that closely resembled a review previously published by The Guardian.
According to an online editor’s note Editor’s note on the webpage and reporting by The Guardian and other outlets, the NYT said on March 30 that freelance journalist Alex Preston had admitted using AI in a review he submitted to the paper. The Times said it ended his contract for violating its reporting standards.
The NYT said readers alerted the paper that a review it ran earlier this year contained phrasing similar to The Guardian’s review of the same book, prompting an internal investigation. Both reviews covered Jean-Baptiste Andrea’s Watching Over Her; The Guardian’s review appeared in August of the previous year. During the inquiry, Preston admitted he had used an AI tool to incorporate material from The Guardian’s review into his draft and, after recognizing the overlap, failed to remove it.
In its editor’s note, the NYT said that relying on AI and using someone else’s work without attribution was a clear violation of the paper’s standards. A NYT spokesperson told The Guardian that Preston will no longer contribute to the newspaper. Preston had written six reviews for the Times between 2021 and 2026; he told the NYT that he did not use AI on other assignments.
According to The Guardian, the NYT review described a character as “lazy and Machiavellian Stefano.” The Guardian’s version used “lazy, Machiavellian Stefano” — the presence or absence of the comma makes the two renderings effectively identical. The NYT review also contained the sentence: “Ultimately, it is a love letter to a country full of contradictions — wounded, divided, misled, yet miraculous.” Four months earlier, The Guardian’s review had described the book as “above all a love letter to a country full of contradictions — a country ruined by war, torn apart, misled, yet miraculous.”
Preston told The Guardian, “Using an AI tool in my draft review was a serious mistake, and failing to identify and remove duplicated phrasing inserted by the AI was also wrong. I am deeply embarrassed and truly sorry. I immediately took responsibility and apologized to the NYT, and I want to apologize to Kristobel Kent and The Guardian as well.”
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