The Funke media group, which owns Die Aktuelle, fired the publication’s editor-in-chief for publishing an artificial intelligence-generated Michael Schumacher “interview” parody. The publisher apologized to the family of the seven-time Formula 1 champion.
“This tasteless and misleading article should never have appeared,” Bianca Polman, Funke’s managing director, was quoted as saying by The Guardian. “This is not up to the journalistic standards that we and our readers expect from a publisher like Funke.”
The group made the decision to fire Anne Hoffmann, the editor-in-chief of Die Aktuelle, who allowed the article to be published. The journalist has worked for the publication since 2009.
Last week, Die Aktuelle magazine published a fake interview with Michael Schumacher, the first since the athlete suffered a serious head injury in December 2013. Relatives of the former Formula 1 driver have not disclosed information about his condition.
“There are no vague, vague clues from friends. And their answers! From Michael Schumacher, 54 years old!”, said the annotation to the article. It later emerged that the German cyclist’s responses were generated by a chatbot.
According to ESPN, the Schumacher family planned to sue the magazine over the scandalous “interview.”
Photo: 3777190317 / Shutterstock
Author:
Ahmed Sadulayev
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
