A groundbreaking study from the University of Maryland has revealed something that might surprise you: more than 9% of all news coverage in U.S. newspapers now contains AI-generated text. Even more striking? AI-written content has appeared on the opinion pages of some of America’s most trusted publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

The research, which utilized AI detection technology from Pangram, examined a massive dataset to paint a picture of how artificial intelligence is quietly reshaping journalism. But the findings go deeper than just numbers—they reveal troubling patterns about who’s getting AI-generated news and why.

The Scale of AI in American Journalism

Let’s start with the big picture. Researchers analyzed 186,000 articles published by 1,500 newspapers this year alone. What they found was striking: nearly one in ten articles contained at least some AI-created content.

“We were able to examine 186,000 articles published by 1,500 newspapers this year and found that nearly one in ten had at least some AI-created content,” said Max Spero, one of the paper’s authors and co-founder of the AI transparency company Pangram, which provided the technology for the research. “The overall number, nine percent, is surprising, but what we also found about where, and perhaps why, this was happening ought to be concerning,” he said.

The research team brought together expertise from multiple institutions. The paper was co-authored by Jenna Russell and Mohit Iyyer of the University of Maryland, Marzena Karpinska at Microsoft, and Destiny Akinode, Katherine Thai, Max Spero, and Bradley Emi with Pangram.

A Troubling Geographic and Economic Divide

Here’s where things get really interesting—and worrying. The study found that AI use in journalism isn’t evenly distributed. Instead, it follows patterns that reveal deeper issues in American media.

The paper finds that “AI use in published articles is increasingly common yet rarely disclosed. In our recent news dataset, 9.1% of articles are labeled by Pangram as either AI-generated or mixed.” The paper further states, “Digging deeper, we observe that AI usage is unevenly distributed: it is much higher in smaller local outlets than nationally-circulated papers, and particularly concentrated in the mid-Atlantic and southern U.S. states.”

Think about what this means. Communities without major newspapers—the places already struggling with “news deserts”—are getting significantly more AI-generated content than readers in larger cities. The numbers tell the story clearly: only 1.7% of articles at papers with circulation of more than 100,000 are partially or fully AI-generated.

The paper found correlation between communities without a major, large circulation newspaper and increased frequency of AI-created text in news articles. In fact, the paper found that AI-use on the news pages of major daily papers was quite limited.

Corporate Ownership Patterns Emerge

The research also uncovered significant differences based on who owns the newspaper. Some media companies are using AI far more than others.

Examination of AI-created or AI-containing news articles also showed correlation to news owners, with some major companies’ papers containing significant AI content. “Boone News Media has the highest percentage of partial or complete AI-content detected (20.9%), well above the second highest, Advance Publications (13.4%),” the paper found.

“This disparity — that communities served by smaller papers and some corporate owners get more AI-made content than people in larger cities with bigger papers or different owner groups — is worrying, and may be a consequence of collapsing news economies, the result of news deserts,” said Emi, co-founder of Pangram.

What makes this even more concerning? In most cases, readers aren’t being told when they’re reading AI-generated or AI-assisted content. The lack of disclosure means people can’t make informed decisions about the information they’re consuming.

AI Appears on Opinion Pages Too

The use of artificial intelligence isn’t confined to news reporting. AI-generated text has also surfaced on the opinion pages of three major newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

While the overall percentage was relatively small at 4.5%, it’s worth noting that this was significantly higher than AI use on the news pages of those same outlets, which stood at just 0.7%. Most of these AI-containing opinion pieces came from guest contributors rather than regular columnists. The research identified 219 opinion articles at these three papers containing AI content.

“Opinion articles published at the NYT, WaPo, and WSJ are 6.4 times more likely to contain AI use than contemporaneous news articles from the same three newspapers,” the paper found.

This raises important questions. Should opinion pieces—where authenticity and personal voice matter most—contain AI-generated text? And shouldn’t readers know when they’re reading something that wasn’t entirely written by a human?

Why This Matters for You

Understanding where your news comes from isn’t just an academic exercise. It’s about trust, accuracy, and making informed decisions.

“Understanding the origins of our news is important, even vital, to being safe, informed, and able to make good decisions,” said Spero. “With the media and technology landscapes shifting rapidly and significantly, keeping our fingers on the pulse of news creation is essential,” he said.

To help readers and media observers track these trends, Pangram is launching an “AI News Monitor” alongside this report. The tool will regularly update and publicize data about AI use in news and opinion pages, providing ongoing transparency.

“We’re not a one-and-done on this topic,” Spero said. “Transparency in AI use is a core value for us, and we’re invested in getting good information about AI to people, especially when it comes to news and commentary,” he said.

What Comes Next

This research opens up crucial conversations about the future of journalism. As newsrooms face economic pressures and AI technology becomes more sophisticated, these trends will likely continue—and possibly accelerate.

The question isn’t whether AI will be part of journalism’s future. It’s how we’ll use it, who will benefit from it, and whether readers will know when they’re consuming AI-generated content. This study gives us our first real glimpse at those answers, and they suggest we need to pay close attention.

Origianl Creator: Ekaterina Pisareva
Original Link: https://justainews.com/ai-compliance/ai-ethics-and-society/9-of-us-news-articles-contain-ai-generated-content/
Originally Posted: Thu, 23 Oct 2025 20:51:00 +0000