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Subbu Vincent

@subbuvincent.bsky.social

I direct Journalism & Media Ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Focus: sourcing standards; role of algorithms/AI in news distribution; democratic culture. https://www.linkedin.com/in/subbuvincent/

30 Posts565 Follower494 Folgt
Subbu Vincent@subbuvincent.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Last weekend, Ars Technica retracted an AI-involved-news story by reporter Benj Edwards because it had fabricated quotes. Edwards has already explained how it happened, taken responsibility, and said that he had asked his boss to pull the piece. bsky.app/profile/benj...

Benj Edwards@benjedwards.com · 6mo ago

Sorry all this is my fault; and speculation has grown worse because I have been sick in bed with a high fever and unable to reliably address it (still am sick) I was told by management not to comment until they did. Here is my statement in images below arstechnica.com/staff/2026/0...

I have been sick with COVID all week and missed Mon and Tues due to this. On Friday, while working from bed with a fever and very little sleep, I unintentionally made a serious journalistic error in an article about Scott Shambaugh. Here’s what happened: I was incorporating information from Shambaugh’s new blog post into an existing draft from Thursday. During the process, I decided to try an experimental Claude Code-based AI tool to help me extract relevant verbatim source material. Not to generate the article but to help list structured references I could put in my outline. When the tool refused to process the post due to content policy restrictions (Shambaugh’s post described harassment). I pasted the text into ChatGPT to understand why. I should have taken a sick day because in the course of that interaction, I inadvertently ended up with a paraphrased version of Shambaugh’s words rather than his actual words. Being sick and rushing to finish, I failed to verify the quotes in my outline notes against the original blog source before including them in my draft. Kyle Orland had no role in this error. He trusted me to provide accurate quotes, and I failed him. The text of the article was human-written by us, and this incident was isolated and is not representative of Ars Technica’s editorial standards. None of our articles are AI-generated, it is against company policy and we have always respected that. I sincerely apologize to Scott Shambaugh for misrepresenting his words. I take full responsibility. The irony of an AI reporter being tripped up by AI hallucination is not lost on me. I take accuracy in my work very seriously and this is a painful failure on my part. When I realized what had happened, I asked my boss to pull the piece because I was too sick to fix it on Friday. There was nothing nefarious at work, just a terrible judgement call which was no one’s fault but my own. —Benj Edwards, February 15, 2026
Karen Attiah@karenattiah.bsky.social · 11mo ago

So many people are asking how they can support me.. The best way .. is to support @resistanceschool.bsky.social! I’ll be teaching Race, Media and International Affairs 101 and 102 next month. Sign up for lectures by me and guest speakers! www.resistancesummerschool.com/fall-2025-re...

Fall Registration for Race, Media & International Affairs with Karen Attiah — Resistance Study Series

A virtual, seven week beginner and intermediate course on the history of race, mass media, and the modern world order.

resistancesummerschool.com

Derek Barker@dwmbarker.bsky.social · 12mo ago

All star group on how journalism is failing to respond to authoritarian elites, fake news, and AI--and how it can pivot to meet the moment. @subbuvincent.bsky.social @jayrosen.bsky.social @joelsimonsays.bsky.social and others. www.cjr.org/feature/thir...

Thirteen Journalists on How They Are Rethinking Ethics

We asked newsroom leaders and ethicists what they’re keeping or changing in an era of Trump, “fake news,” AI, and industry decline.

cjr.org

@toptenusernames.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Great piece by @subbuvincent.bsky.social on avoiding both-sidesism and ignoring fake controversies! "Once you take somebody else’s framing, and you make it part of your controversy, you’ve legitimized the controversy... A better approach is: Determine whether something is a controversy or not."

Columbia Journalism Review@columjournreview.bsky.social · 12mo ago

We asked newsroom leaders and ethicists what they’re keeping or changing in an era of Trump, “fake news,” AI, and industry decline. Read Julie Gerstein and Margaret Sullivan. www.cjr.org/feature/thir...

Ethics & Journalism Initiative @ NYU@ethical-news.bsky.social · last yr.

News headlines are the first and most important interface between readers and journalists, but few news organizations address the mechanics of headline writing in their ethics codes. Read our latest with @subbuvincent.bsky.social on his new guidance for newsrooms balancing ethics and SEO:

How to Write Fairer, More Accurate Headlines - Ethics and Journalism

New guidance from the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics lays out three principles for ethical headline writing and offers guidance for newsrooms that want to achieve them.

ethicsandjournalism.org

John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford@jskstanford.bsky.social · last yr.

JSK alum Paulette Brown-Hinds and her team at Mapping Black California build data visualization tools that expose systemic inequalities and hold institutions accountable. How they give communities the necessary information to push for real change...

How a Black-led journalism project uses technology to address systemic inequalities in California

By Nevin Thompson, Hacks/Hackers Marketing & Communications Lead In the years following the 2020 murder of Black American George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, racism was…

buff.ly

Julie Cohen ❌👑@filmmakerjulie.bsky.social · last yr.

I've resigned from the jury for the duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards in response to Columbia's capitulation to Trump. www.poynter.org/commentary/2...

Oscar-nominated filmmaker resigns from duPont-Columbia journalism awards over school’s concessions to Trump - Poynter

Julie Cohen, co-director of ‘RGB,’ resigned from the duPont-Columbia Awards committee, saying, ‘In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up.’

poynter.org

Subbu Vincent@subbuvincent.bsky.social · last yr.

This feels like eons ago now, and so much water down the rivers since then!

The Internet Ethics program--Markkula Center for Applied Ethics@iethics.bsky.social · last yr.

Interesting to look now at an #ethics case study/exercise drafted by @subbuvincent.bsky.social in 2020 and used with students in conversations back then: "Open Source #AI: To Release or Not To Release the GPT-2 Synthetic Text Generator": www.scu.edu/ethics/focus... #tech #LLMs #highered #business

More Perfect Union@moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 2y ago

Thousands of Amazon workers across 20 countries are going to protest or strike this Black Friday. Workers from the US to India to Brazil to Japan and beyond plan to take action to demand workers’ rights and climate action from the corporate giant. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Amazon workers in 20 countries to protest or strike on Black Friday

Workers and their representatives to press US retailer to respect their rights and take action on the climate crisis

theguardian.com

Ben Lennett@benlennett.bsky.social · 2y ago

Great article on the digital ad marketplace and the DOJ case against Google. As a former marketing executive, Lisa Macpherson has insider perspective and provides a helpful discussion of the tech stack for digital ads and why they are problematic for publishers, the public, and advertisers.

Why the DOJ’s Google Ad Tech Case Matters to You | TechPolicy.Press

Digital ads erode privacy and hurt publishers. DOJ’s antitrust suit exemplifies Google’s role in creating and sustaining these issues, writes Lisa Macpherson.

techpolicy.press

Subbu Vincent@subbuvincent.bsky.social · 2y ago

Black women have consistently voted for the Democratic party for decades. Why did the affordability crisis, misinformation, immigration chaos, and treasury-draining endless wars not split the Black women’s vote? Hear what a range of Black women have to say! www.forbes.com/sites/subram...

How Journalists Can Better Explain Why Black Women Vote The Way They Do

Why did the affordability crisis, misinformation, immigration chaos, and endless wars not split the Black women’s vote? Civic duty and protecting hard-won freedoms.

forbes.com

Subbu Vincent@subbuvincent.bsky.social · 2y ago

Black women have consistently voted for the Democratic party for decades. Why did the affordability crisis, misinformation, immigration chaos, and treasury-draining endless wars not split the Black women’s vote? Hear what a range of Black women have to say! www.forbes.com/sites/subram...

How Journalists Can Better Explain Why Black Women Vote The Way They Do

Why did the affordability crisis, misinformation, immigration chaos, and endless wars not split the Black women’s vote? Civic duty and protecting hard-won freedoms.

forbes.com

Sarah J. Jackson@sjjphd.bsky.social · 2y ago

Only a tiny portion of Black Americans were granted the land they were owed after the civil war. And then, almost immediately, the government took it back. Here’s where the people, and the land, ended up. Remarkable investigative reporting from the Reveal folks here:

40 Acres and a Lie

40ACRES AND A LIE A government program gave formerly enslaved people land after the Civil War, only to take nearly all of it back a year and a half later. We used artificial intelligence to track down...

motherjones.com