Overview
- Editors, who added a public note on Monday, ended Alex Preston’s assignment after confirming he used an AI tool that pulled lines into his New York Times review.
- A reader tip triggered the probe into his January piece, which closely echoed Christobel Kent’s August 2025 Guardian review of the same novel.
- One mirrored line described a character as a “lazy, Machiavellian Stefano,” matching phrasing in The Guardian’s earlier critique.
- The Times notified The Guardian by email on March 30 and appended an editor’s note that links to Kent’s review for transparency.
- Preston apologized and said he had not used AI in earlier Times reviews, and the paper said it found no issues in those pieces as the episode fuels wider debates over AI checks, freelancer oversight, and plagiarism risks highlighted by recent cases at other outlets.