Just Say No to AI: How NOT To Do a Summer Reading Resource

This post is part of a series entitled, "Just Say Not to AI." Click here to pull up all the posts in this series (in reverse chronilogical order). For the first post in this series, click here.

A couple of days ago, The Sun Times was in the middle of an AI firestorm. From a report on the original 404 Media story: 

On Sunday, the Chicago Sun-Times published an advertorial summer reading list containing at least 10 fake books attributed to real authors, according to multiple reports on social media. The newspaper's uncredited "Summer reading list for 2025" supplement recommended titles including "Tidewater Dreams" by Isabel Allende and "The Last Algorithm" by Andy Weir—books that don't exist and were created out of thin air by an AI system.

The creator of the list, Marco Buscaglia, confirmed to 404 Media that he used AI to generate the content. "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," Buscaglia said. "On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed."

So he is 100 percent embarrassed. That's his defense? his is the part that makes he the most mad-- that he is very clear that he always uses it. Seriously!?!?

A few days ago, I had this post about shaking up the resources you use to find reading lists. In a vacuum, I would have always trusted a major city newspaper on first instinct. That being said, I also look at every list I suggest here or use to help readers before passing them. But now. Well, now, I won't trust anything. 

Nor should you. Just like this series reminds you to say no to AI, I am also reminding you that being wary of AI means we need to look critically at every resource we employ. 

It is our job as the gatekeepers of information to make sure we are aware of how that information was created. And that job gets harder every day.

Back to this specific situation though. The Chicago Sun Time released an apology before the end of the day. From that apology:

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.

While this is a good apology, one that takes full responsibility for the debacle, it is still sobering. The fact that they outsourced their summer reading special coverage to a company for which they had no editorial oversight is upsetting on its own, but I need to stress the larger issue here. Chicago is a bookish city. We have dozens of independent bookstores. We are home to the American Writers Museum, the American Library Association, and the Poetry Foundation. The Chicago Tribune has a dedicated book beat reporter who creates a summer reading list for them every year. The Sun Times is owned by Chicago Public Media which shares reporters with the paper and WBEZ. The fact that they had no one they could pay here in Chicago to write this supplement is not only wrong, it is lazy.

I know many people, including myself, who live here and write these kind of pieces for pay all of the time. Heck, at the very least they could have reached out to Booklist Magazine where they are creating this content every single day, down the street from Chicago Public Media. Or the staff at CPL. They would do it for free. They should have book coverage for summer reading written by Chicago bookish people.

If they learn anything from this, it should be one, to make sure even those they outsource work to are not allowed to use AI, and two, it would be a whole lot easier if they paid real people that they know, from Chicago to create their bookish content.