Instead of the meticulously reported summer entertainment coverage the Sun-Times staff has published for years, these pages were filled with innocuous general content: hammock instructions, summer recipes, smartphone advice ... and a list of 15 books to read this summer. Of those 15 recommended books by 15 authors, 10 titles and descriptions were false, or invented out of whole cloth. [...] It took a full 24 hours for someone to spot the error and speak up.
Curated from chicago.suntimes.com · 30 May 2025 →
On 18 May 2025 the Chicago Sun-Times printed a 64-page summer supplement carrying a reading list of fifteen books. Ten of them do not exist, though the authors do: an invented Isabel Allende novel, an invented Taylor Jenkins Reid, an invented Brit Bennett. The section was licensed from King Features, a Hearst syndication unit, and written by a freelancer who used AI to compile it and did not check the output or disclose it. King Features ended the relationship; the Sun-Times published a correction, refunded subscribers for the issue and its chief executive wrote the piece quoted here. A later internal review found further fabricated quotes and experts elsewhere in the same supplement.
