After getting caught fabricating quotes, Cody reporter resigns

Writer’s submissions appeared to have been manufactured by AI

POWELL — A reporter at the Cody Enterprise resigned on Friday, after the Powell Tribune confronted him with evidence indicating that he’d fabricated some of the quotes that appeared in several of his stories.

In an interview just prior to his resignation, Aaron Pelczar conceded that the quotes may have been made up by an artificial intelligence tool he was using to help write his articles.

To date, seven people — ranging from Gov. Mark Gordon to the victim of an alleged crime — have indicated to the Tribune that they didn’t make the statements Pelczar quoted them as making.

The Tribune also found a number of other quotes that were altered in some way or attributed to the wrong person.

Most of the fabricated quotes could be described as innocuous, and most of the altered quotes simply reflected rephrasing, but in all of the cases, they appear to be incorrect.

When presented with some of the Tribune’s findings on Friday, Pelczar did not directly defend the accuracy of his reporting, saying he wasn’t sure where some of the quotes had come from. He also said he would correct any that turned out to be wrong.

“Obviously I’ve never intentionally tried to misquote anybody,” Pelczar said.

When asked whether the disputed statements had been fabricated by an AI program, Pelczar offered, “That could be the case.

“But again,” he said, “if there are issues I will correct them and issue apologies and say they are misstatements.”

Pelczar made a point of saying that any mistakes he made shouldn’t reflect on the Enterprise. He described his methods as his own and defended his editors, saying “they’re taking what I bring in at face value.”

The Tribune first notified the Enterprise of its concerns on Thursday, and this reporter met with Enterprise Editor Chris Bacon and Pelczar on Friday.

The Tribune provided the Enterprise a list that included additional findings on Sunday.

The paper removed most of the questioned quotes from its website and added editor’s notes on Tuesday and Wednesday. In its Thursday print edition, the Enterprise issued a correction stating that, “Artificial Intelligence was allowed to misquote individuals in several of our articles … We regret the lack of oversight.”

In an editorial, Enterprise Publisher Megan Barton wrote, “We take extreme pride in the content that we put out to our community and we trust that the individuals hired to accurately write these stories are honest in gathering their information. So, you can imagine our surprise when we learned otherwise.”

She described the AI-generated content as a “new, advanced form of plagiarism.”

While the Tribune identified quotes that were taken from other media outlets, its investigation stemmed from the apparent fabrications.

Barton wrote that the paper had learned its lesson, has implemented a system to catch AI-generated stories and “will hold our employees to a higher standard.”

“The community deserves the best, most authentic form of reporting and that is what we strive to produce,” Barton wrote.

A question of accuracy

The bogus quotes were generally unremarkable, with a couple people telling the Tribune they didn’t necessarily disagree with what they were quoted as saying. They just never said it.

In a July 31 piece, Pelczar quoted the owner of Rocky Mountain Discount Liquor and Lounge, Brandon McArtor of Gillette, as saying the recent discovery of an alleged six figure embezzlement scheme at the store was an “incredibly disheartening” betrayal.

But the remarks appear to have been an AI fabrication.

“Those are words that I very well could have said,” McArtor told the Tribune, “but they are not what I said.”

“Journalism needs to be transparent and needs to be accurate,” he added.

Alex Mahadevan, who leads a digital media literacy project at the journalism education nonprofit The Poynter Institute, said any AI-generated content needs to be subject to heavy human editing, because the technology is fallible.

“Basically, what AI is really good at is, it’s good at creating plausible bulls—,” Mahadevan said in an interview.

As part of his work with Poynter’s MediaWise project, Mahadevan tracks the use of generative AI in journalism. While he’s heard of reporters being accused of using AI to write paragraphs, Mahadevan said this was the first time he’d heard of someone using the technology to make up quotes.

“It’s insane,” he said, adding, “you’re so lazy that you won’t pick up the phone and call someone, you’re going to fabricate the quotes, and [then] you’re so lazy that you’re going to use AI to fabricate the quotes? That’s just like … that’s next level.”

Raising red flags

Pelczar joined the Enterprise in June for what was the 40-year-old’s first job in journalism.

The Tribune became suspicious of his reporting after noticing phrases, formatting and patterns in his stories that appeared to come from some kind of AI tool — such as subjective analyses that typically aren’t included in news stories.

For example, Pelczar’s July 8 piece about a fatal shooting in Yellowstone National Park offered that, “This incident serves as a stark reminder of the unpredictable nature of human behavior, even in the most serene settings.”

Additionally, the Tribune noticed Pelczar was taking quotes from other media outlets without crediting the source.

His July 8 feature on 2024 Xtreme Bulls winner Josh Frost included this line: “‘All I’ve ever wanted to do was be a bull rider,’ Josh stated, reflecting on his lifelong passion for the sport.”

What went unmentioned is that Frost made the comment nearly seven years earlier, during a 2017 interview with the Edmonton Journal in Alberta, Canada.

Similarly, when Pelczar wrote on June 26 about Larry the Cable Guy being picked as the grand marshal of the Cody Stampede Parade, he didn’t gather his own quotes, but instead took comments an organizer had provided in earlier interviews with the Tribune and Cowboy State Daily.

Pelczar said Friday that he hadn’t realized he needed to give credit and expressed uncertainty about how to do so.

In an apparent editing oversight, Pelczar’s parade piece also contained the strongest evidence that his writing was being influenced by some kind of AI program.

“The 2024 Cody Stampede Parade promises to be an unforgettable celebration of American independence, led by one of comedy’s most beloved figures,” read the final paragraph, concluding, “This structure ensures that the most critical information is presented first, making it easier for readers to grasp the main points quickly.”

Poaching quotes

What ultimately triggered the Tribune’s investigation was a July 29 piece about a Cody hunter being sentenced for poaching two elk.

It represented a scoop for Pelczar, as he was the first to report on what the story proclaimed to be “a significant victory against wildlife poaching.”

But the Tribune’s interest was piqued by the addition of two quotes from the investigating game warden and the prosecuting attorney. Both remarks sounded as though they came from an official press release: Deputy Park County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Eichele was quoted in part as saying that, “This conviction sends a clear message that illegal hunting activities will not be tolerated,” while North Cody Game Warden Travis Crane purportedly called the case “a reminder that poaching has serious consequences.”

However, authorities never issued a release, and when the Tribune made inquiries, no one knew where the quotes had come from.

“I did not say what he [Pelczar] has attributed to me,” Eichele said in an email, while a Wyoming Game and Fish Department spokeswoman said Crane never spoke with the Enterprise about the case.

Those revelations prompted the Tribune to revisit a comment that Pelczar had attributed to Gordon in a July 10 piece about an Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposal to issue new rules related to heat exposure.

The oddity was that Gordon was quoted as expressing concerns about the new federal regulations in his capacity as a private rancher, not in his role as the state’s chief executive.

“While protecting our workers is paramount, the costs associated with implementing these new regulations could be crippling for small operations like ours,” the purported quote from Gordon read. “We need a balanced approach that ensures safety without putting us out of business.”

When a Tribune reporter reached out to Gordon’s office and asked if the governor had provided that comment to the Enterprise, Gordon’s spokesman said he was “not certain where that quote came from.” (Spokesman Michael Pearlman later said the governor “never issued a statement or made a public comment on that OSHA rule.”)

As the governor’s office reached out to Pelczar for an explanation, the Tribune continued checking other quotes, and Pelczar turned in another problematic piece.

The front page of the July 31 Enterprise included a story about the former manager of a Rocky Mountain Discount Liquor and Lounge being charged with embezzling over $190,000. Pelczar’s article differed from other outlets’ coverage in that it prominently included a quote from the store owner, McArtor.

But McArtor told the Tribune he’d never made that statement or spoken with the reporter.

Pelczar initially said the comments had come from the charging affidavit — he made the same assertion about Eichele’s and Crane’s supposed remarks — but later acknowledged that, like the Tribune, he’d been unable to find those quotes in the court record.

Meteors and raccoons

Other more mundane stories from Pelczar also appear to have included made-up quotes.

In a July 29 piece about a rare double meteor shower, he quoted “astronomer Dr.” Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society as saying the “overlapping peaks” of the two meteor showers would make the night sky “even more vibrant,” and quoted “meteorologist” Christopher Conselice as saying the clear skies forecast for Cody would make for “a great time to gather family and friends for a night under the stars.”

However, both men said they’d never spoken to Pelczar, and both noted that the story misstated their titles.

Conselice, for one, is actually a professor of extragalactic astronomy at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

“I can 100% assure you that I did not talk to this reporter or anyone from the Cody Enterprise, nor have ever said anything similar to that quote to anyone,” Conselice said in an email. “That quote is fabricated.”

The Florida native also dismissed the suggestion that there could be a meteorologist who shares his name.

“I’m almost totally positive I am the only Christopher Conselice in the world,” he said, saying he believes there’s fewer than 10 people in the U.S. with the Conselice surname.

As for Lunsford, he speculated that Pelczar may have drawn from an interview he gave to CNN or The New York Times, but “it’s not exactly what I told them,” he said.

The meteor society’s “fireball coordinator” also noted he’s not a professional astronomer and “certainly not a doctor,” while indicating his supposed quote was an exaggeration.

“They always tend to gloss it up to make it seem a heck of a lot better than it really is,” Lunsford said, referring to journalists. “That’s why we get such a bad name. You know, people drive 50 miles to dark skies expecting hundreds of meteors and they then may see 10 or 20.”

Similarly, Pelczar’s July 29 feature about raccoons’ role as the “Problem-Solving Geniuses of the Animal Kingdom” included an apparently made-up comment from Lauren Stanton, an expert on the species.

“I did not give that quote to Mr. Pelczar, nor did I provide that quote to anyone else,” said Stanton, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley who obtained her doctorate at the University of Wyoming.

She added that the piece took some “liberties” with what researchers know about raccoons’ cognition versus other species.

Rewritten and retooled quotes

Other quotes, meanwhile, appeared to be based on previously published statements that either Pelczar or the AI tool misattributed or altered.

A July 8 story about incoming Wyoming Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce quotes Gordon as saying, “Angi is an incredibly talented and professional leader.”

However, it appears that comment was actually made by the outgoing director, Brian Nesvik, back in 2019.

Another quote from Gordon in that piece was changed to say that Bruce’s appointment reflects “Wyoming’s commitment to wildlife and our natural resource heritage,” when the governor was actually referring to the entire pool of finalists.

Meanwhile, other direct quotes in Pelczar’s stories — including from a couple different City of Cody officials — appear to have been paraphrased in ways that preserved the speakers’ intent, but drifted far from their actual words.

‘A great way to leverage your time’

Pelczar had no journalism experience prior to his role at the Enterprise. On his LinkedIn profile — which was taken offline on Saturday — Pelczar identified himself as a portfolio manager with over 14 years of investing experience, mostly in Pennsylvania.

In June 2020, he formed his own investment management firm in Wyoming.

Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate Regula Aurea was a much smaller operation that Pelczar ran from his residence in Cody; the company was dissolved last year.

Pelczar’s first bylined story appeared on the Enterprise site on June 12.

He indicated in Friday’s interview that the job kept him busy; he referenced “pulling all-nighters,” indicating that might have played into his failure to catch any errors.

While he declined to name the specific technology, Pelczar said he was using AI as a supplemental tool for research and “to give color and context” to his stories. Pelczar also called AI “a great way to leverage your time.”

“I hate to say it’s the future, because it’s the now,” he said, noting that media organizations like The Associated Press have been incorporating artificial intelligence into their operations.

“Clearly AP’s not doing a lot of amateur misquotes, but they use AI in their reporting — as does Forbes and Bloomberg and The New York Times,” he said.

It’s true that numerous professional media outlets have experimented with AI, but generally within strict limits.

For example, the AP issued guidelines last year that bar reporters from using AI to create “publishable content and images.”

The New York Times, meanwhile, issued guidance in March that says any use of generative AI in its newsroom “must begin with factual information vetted by our journalists and, as with everything else we produce, must be reviewed by editors.”

‘You have to edit everything’

Mahadevan, of The Poynter Institute, has taught journalists around the country, including in Wyoming, about how to ethically use AI, and he said it can be a useful tool.

As one example, he said a time-strapped reporter might feed the transcript of a school board meeting into an AI program and ask it to highlight potentially newsworthy items; the reporter could then determine if the program’s suggestions merited following up.

But Mahadevan stressed that “an editor and journalists should always be involved in the process.”

He also warned “you might honestly find yourself doing more work” by using AI, “because you have to edit everything that comes out of it.”

The content being generated by leading AI tools is not currently at the level of human journalists, Mahadevan said, “and it’s going to be hard to convince a lot of people that it will ever get there, honestly.”

Among Pelczar’s pieces was one about Wyoming’s U.S. senators opposing the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to require disclosures on AI-generated campaign ads.

Like a number of Pelczar’s pieces, and AI-generated content in general, the July 1 story closed by offering a summary of what it all meant — landing on a moral that could perhaps also apply to the new technology’s role in journalism.

“It underscores the ongoing tension between technological progress and the preservation of democratic norms,” Pelczar or the program wrote, “a debate that is likely to intensify as AI continues to evolve and shape our political landscape.”

This story was published on August 8, 2024.