NJ Journalists Claim They Were Replaced With AI Reporters

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The chain was founded in 1983 to cover developing towns across the river from Manhattan, including Hoboken and Jersey City. By 2018 the print and web publications included the Hoboken Reporter, Jersey City Reporter, the Bayonne Community News, and several others.

Who’s Writing Content?

A slew of local education stories appeared on the website from March through July, including a March article about the suspension of Secaucus’ superintendent of schools with the byline Eleanor Vega.

According to Vega’s bio, she’s “a distinguished education journalist with over 15 years of experience, holding a Master’s Degree in Education Policy from Columbia University. Her work focuses on educational reform, classroom technology, and equity…Eleanor’s articles for the Hudson Reporter bridge education policy with real-world impacts…”

Columbia does offer a master’s degree in education policy via its Teacher’s College. But Patty Lamiell, the director of media relations for Teacher’s College at Columbia, told Patch, “Teachers College cannot confirm that any individual by the name of Eleanor Vega graduated from Teacher’s College.”

Vega’s story on the Secaucus superintendent quotes both Mayor Michael Gonnelli and Board of Education President Kelli D’Addetta.

There’s one problem — the quotes are identical to quotes obtained for a story by Carly Baldwin, a full-time editor for Patch.

And according to D’Addetta, the quote was only given to Baldwin.

“To answer your question I did not speak to anyone [there],” said D’Addetta, the Secaucus school board president, in an email to Baldwin in July, when asked by Baldwin whether she spoke to anyone from the Hudson Reporter.

Mayor Gonnelli said he couldn’t recall speaking to a reporter named Eleanor Vega.

Since Patch began asking questions in July, the byline for Vega’s stories was changed to “Sarah Rodriguez.”

In fact, Eleanor Vega’s name and bio no longer appear on the Reporter website, and Rodriguez’s byline began appearing on the local education stories.

Eleanor Vega was credited with a story in late July about a Texas man being shot to death on the New Jersey Turnpike in Secaucus, which still appears with her byline on Newsbreak — a news aggregating site — but on Hudsonreporter.com, it now bears Rodriguez’s name instead.

More recently, Patch Field Editor Caren Lissner wrote a story for Hoboken Patch on Aug. 13 about the Hoboken public schools receiving $500,000 in developer PILOT money. The Patch story included a quote from 2nd Ward Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher that was obtained during a phone interview.

An identical quote appeared in Sarah Rodriguez’s story on the matter that appeared on the Hudson Reporter website a week later.

“I only gave that quote to you [Patch],” Fisher said.

Sold After The Layoffs

Brandon Chamberlain, the general manager of Newspaper Media Group, said last month that the company no longer owns the website, and in fact, “The domain was sold in February 2023 or near there.”

He declined to say to whom the domain was sold, or the selling price. When asked, he said it was not sold to an AI company.

Until this month, NMG was listed in the staff box of a PDF version of the site that appears in the lower right of the page. When informed on Sept. 21 that the staff box still had NMG still listed, Chamberlain said he would have it removed.

Until recently, the staff box also listed three staff members who had been laid off in January 2023, including former reporter Jordan Coll and former editor Gene Ritchings.

That changed after Ritchings emailed an address at the Hudson Reporter in late August, writing, “On the Hudson Reporter website there is a shoddy facsimile of a print newspaper dated August 18, 2024. The graphic layout is amateurish and the stories are full of gaps that could only have been produced by a machine with no human intellect guiding it. But most outrageous, in the staff box on page two I am listed as the editor. I have not been the editor of The Hudson Reporter since January 2023, and I would never produce such a badly designed paper.”

He added, “Naming me as editor of this fake newspaper is a professional insult and I demand that you remove my name immediately.”

Patch has reached out to every email address listed on HudsonReporter.com’s contact pages — including an email for Jessica Lamiere, listed as the the editor — but her email bounced back. Patch received no response to an email to info@hudsonreporter or to an advertising manager, Samantha Clark.

Journalists Fight AI Reporting

Journalists Daniel Israel and Jordan Coll, who were laid off by the Hudson Reporter in January 2023, have spent several months heading to various town councils in Hudson County to raise awareness of the shutting of the Hudson Reporter, the loss of the paper’s archives, and the dangers of replacing journalists with AI.

Israel had worked for the chain for three years when he was laid off via a phone call in January 2023, he said. He said he used to spend hours at town meetings for crucial issues like major developments, rather than solely relying on other reporting.

So far, he and Coll have convinced nine of Hudson County’s city councils, as well as the Hudson County Board of Commissioners, to pass a resolution this year memorializing the “demise of the Hudson Reporter” and honoring the chain’s 40-year legacy.

Part of the problem with AI-aggregated stories, Israel said, is, “I don’t believe readers currently understand that this is written by AI. It’s concerning, misleading, and an affront to the truth and ethical journalistic standards.”

This past spring, the city of Jersey City’s council voted 8-0 to accept the resolution honoring the Reporter’s legacy, according to the April 10 meeting minutes.

“We continue to raise awareness of the dangers of artificial intelligence replacing journalists in newsrooms at the public hearings for each measure,” Israel said.
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Coll has been chronicling the byline changes on the Reporter website on social media.

He posted on Twitter on June 14 that Eleanor Vega and another bylined reporter “don’t exist.” He said he was trying to “spotlighting the direct impact artificial intelligence played out in undermining the work of actual journalists!”

Decades Of Unique Reporting

Among other ramifications for Hudson County residents, Coll said, decades of past news stories on the Reporter website have become difficult to find.

“On top of that, at one point the website removed the decades-old digital archive of The Hudson Reporter and Bayonne Community News,” Israel wrote in July.

Some of the Reporter’s stories addressed aspects of Hudson County’s infamous political history not covered in depth elsewhere, such as a look at the mysterious death of political consultant Michael Galdieri. (The matter resurfaced in 2022 when another consultant pleaded guilty.)

Israel and Coll said they’re talking to legislators including Bayonne Assemblyman William Sampson about addressing the replacement of journalists with AI reporters.

Last November, Sports Illustrated was criticized for using reporters who could not be traced, with apparently false photos and bios.

“The once-powerful publication said it was firing a company that produced articles for its website written under the byline of authors who apparently don’t exist,” wrote PBS, quoting University of Maryland journalism professor Tom Rosenstiel as saying, “If you want to be in the truth-telling business, which journalists claim they do, you shouldn’t tell lies.”

The website Futurism found that Sports Illustrated bylines such as “Drew Ortiz” were paired with photos that were for sale on an website selling AI-generated headshots.

‘The People’

When Coll and the rest of the editorial staff were laid off in 2023, they were told the reason was “revenue vs. expenses.”

Departing sales manager Tish Krasyk wrote on Facebook at the time that the publishers had “made the decision to cease publication of all Hudson County publications effective immediately…I have worked with these publications for 27 years and have enjoyed every minute of it. The people of Hudson County are like nobody else.”

A reader left a comment underneath: “Oh no. Where will I post my husband’s memorial every year for his anniversary. Sad great little paper.”

What Now?

In August, after Patch began asking questions, a new byline, Moses Lookman, appeared on local news stories on the site.

Lookman did not respond to an email address given for him on the site, but did respond when Patch reached out via LinkedIn. He said he was writing for the site but did not respond to more detailed questions.

Currently, he is the only person credited with writing local news. Much of the content on the site has focused on sports, gambling, and cryptocurrency.

Sarah Rodriguez’s byline appeared on a review in March of the dating website Ashley Madison, mentioning several times that it’s free for women. “It can connect you with an affair partner while offering advanced privacy features and absolute discretion,” she noted.

It’s still unclear who owns the site. Patch called the phone number given on the site, 201-798-7800, but a recording says it’s no longer in service.

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