The downfall of Quartz is really something to behold. It was launched in 2012 as a digital-only offshoot of the Atlantic specifically intended for business and economic news. It compared itself to esteemed publications like the Economist and Financial Times, and had a clever-for-early-2010s URL.1 It had an iPad-first layout. Six years later, it and “its own bot studio” were sold to Uzabase for a decent sum. But the good times did not last, and Quartz was eventually sold to G/O Media.
Riley MacLeod, Aftermath:
As of publishing, the “Quartz Intelligence Newsroom” has written 22 articles today, running the gamut from earnings reports to Reddit communities banning Twitter posts to the Sackler settlement to, delightfully, a couple articles about how much AI sucks. Quartz has been running AI-generated articles for months, but prior to yesterday, they appear to have been limited to summaries of earnings reports rather than news articles. Boilerplate at the bottom of these articles notes that “This is the first phase of an experimental new version of reporting. While we strive for accuracy and timeliness, due to the experimental nature of this technology we cannot guarantee that we’ll always be successful in that regard.”
MacLeod published this story last week, and I thought it would be a good time to check in on how it is going. So I opened the latest article from the “Quartz Intelligence Newsroom”, “Expected new tariffs will mean rising costs for everyday items”. It was published earlier today, and says at the top it “incorporates reporting from Yahoo, NBC Chicago and The Wall Street Journal on MSN.com”. The “Yahoo” story is actually a syndicated video from NBC’s Today Show, so that is not a great start as far as crediting sources goes.
Let us tediously dissect this article, beginning with the first paragraph:
As new tariffs are slated to take effect in early March, consumers in the U.S. can expect price increases on a variety of everyday items. These tariffs, imposed in a series of trade policy shifts, are anticipated to affect numerous sectors of the economy. The direct cost of these tariffs is likely to be passed on to consumers, resulting in higher prices for goods ranging from electronics to household items.
The very first sentence of this article appears to be wrong. The tariffs in question are supposed to be announced today, as stated in that Today Show clip, and none of the cited articles say anything about March. While a Reuters “exclusive” yesterday specified a March 1 enforcement date, the White House denied that report, with the president saying oil and gas tariffs would begin “around the 18 of February”.
To be fair to the robot writing the Quartz article, the president does not know what he is talking about. You could also see how a similar mistake could be made by a human being who read the Reuters story or has sources saying something similar. But the Quartz article does not cite Reuters — it, in fact, contains no links aside from those in the disclaimer quoted above — nor does it claim to have any basis for saying March.
The next paragraph is where things take a sloppier turn; see if you can spot it:
Data from recent analyses indicate that electronics, such as smartphones and laptops, will be among the most impacted by the new tariffs. Importers of these goods face increased costs, which they are poised to transfer to consumers. A report by the U.K.-based research firm Tech Analytics suggests that consumers might see price hikes of up to 15% on popular smartphone models and up to 10% on laptops. These increases are expected to influence consumer purchasing decisions, possibly leading to a decrease in sales volume.
If you are wondering why an article about U.S. tariffs published by a U.S. website is citing a U.K. source, you got the same weird vibe as I did. So I looked it up. And, as best I can tell, there is no U.K. research organization called “Tech Analytics” — none at all. There used to be and, because it was only dissolved in October, it is possible Tech Analytics could be a report from around then based on the president’s campaign statements. But I cannot find any record of Tech Analytics publishing anything whatsoever, or being cited in any news stories. This report does not exist.
I also could not find any source for the figures in this paragraph. Last month, the U.S. Consumer Technology Association published a report (PDF) exploring the effects of these tariffs on U.S. consumer goods. Analysis by Trade Partnership Worldwide indicated the proposed tariffs would raise the price of smartphones by 26–37%, and laptops by 46–68%. These figures assumed a rate of 70–100% on goods from China because that is what the president said he would do. He more recently said 10% tariffs should be expected, and that could mean smartphone prices really do increase by the amount in the Quartz article. However, there is again no (real) source or citation for those numbers.
As far as I can tell, Quartz, a business and financial news website, published a made-up source and some numbers in an article about a high-profile story. If a real person reviewed this story before publication, their work is not evident. Why should a reader trust anything from Quartz ever again?
Let us continue a couple of paragraphs later:
The automotive sector is also preparing for the impact of increased tariffs. Car manufacturers and parts suppliers are bracing for higher production costs as tariffs on imported steel and aluminum take hold. According to a February report from the Automobile Manufacturers Association of the U.S., vehicle prices might go up by an average of $1,500. This increase stems from the higher costs of materials that are critical to vehicle manufacturing and assembly.
Does the phrase “according to a February report” sound weird to you on the first of February? It does to me, too. Would it surprise you if I told you the “Automobile Manufacturers Association of the U.S.” does not exist? There was a U.S. trade group by the name of “Automobile Manufacturers Association” until 1999, according to Stan Luger in “Corporate Power, American Democracy, and the Automobile Industry”.2 There are also several current industry groups, none of which are named anything similar. This organization and its report do not exist. If they do, please tell me, but I found nothing relevant.
What about the figure itself, though — “vehicle prices might go up by an average of $1,500”? Again, I cannot find any supporting evidence. None of the sources cited in this article contain this number. A November Bloomberg story cites a Wolfe Research note in reporting new cars will be about $3,000 more expensive, not $1,500, at the same proposed rate as the White House is expected to announce today.
Again, I have to ask why anyone should trust Quartz with their financial news. I know A.I. makes mistakes and, as MacLeod quotes them saying, Quartz does too: “[w]hile we strive for accuracy and timeliness, due to the experimental nature of this technology we cannot guarantee that we’ll always be successful in that regard”.
This is the first article I checked, and I gave up after the fourth paragraph and two entirely fictional sources of information. Maybe the rest of the Quartz Intelligence Newsroom’s output is spotless and I got unlucky.
But — what a downfall for Quartz. Once positioning itself as the Economist for the 2010s, it is now publishing stuff that is made up by a machine and, apparently, is passed unchecked to the web for other A.I. scrapers to aggregate. G/O Media says it publishes “editorial content and conduct[s its] day-to-day business activities with the UTMOST INTEGRITY”. I disagree. I think we will struggle to understand for a long time how far and how fast standards have fallen. This is trash.