AI scandal rocks the German media

https://www.dw.com/en/ai-scandal-rocks-the-german-media/a-77606407

Publish Date: 2026-06-21 11:38:00

Source Domain: www.dw.com

“For our newsroom, AI is a tool that helps us simplify and also improve certain steps in the editorial process. It is, however, definitely not a tool that is allowed to take over the core of our work.” This was the explanation published last weekend in the Berlin-based newspaper Tagesspiegel, as it hoped to contain a scandal that shook the German media world.

In the same text, the editors laid out their reasoning for taking the drastic decision to stop publishing columns by one of their most famous political commentators until further notice, after it emerged that Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, the newspaper’s former publisher and editor-in-chief, had used AI to compose opinion pieces.

The 67-year-old said he was aware of the magnitude of his misconduct: “I have made a huge mistake, damaged the publication’s reputation and my own,” Casdorff said. “For that I make a heartfelt apology. I used AI in the texts. I should have made that clear and therefore not allowed them to be published.”

Stephan-Andreas Casdorff during an Tagesspiegel event in October 2023 Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, the Tagesspiegel newspaper’s former publisher and editor-in-chief, has admitted to using AI to compose opinion piecesImage: Bernd Elmenthaler/Geisler-Fotopress/picture alliance

The editorial leadership deleted several of Casdorff’s articles from the newspaper’s website: “We decided to take the texts in question offline for the time being until a detailed examination has been completed,” they explained.

The Casdorff case has further fueled an occasionally incendiary debate about the use of artificial intelligence in journalism. A few days earlier it was revealed that a guest op-ed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) by the state premier of Thuringia, Mario Voigt, was also created with the help of AI. The FAZ said it had only found this out after the piece was published.