By Dan Milmo
Publication Date: 2026-03-20 16:13:00
The editor of Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf and the Irish Independent has suspended one of its senior journalists after he admitted using AI to “falsely put words in people’s mouths”.
Peter Vandermeersch, former head of Irish operations at Mediahuis, said he “fell into the trap of hallucinations” – the term for AI-generated errors – when using the technology.
Vandermeersch, now a fellow for journalism and society at the European publishing group, has been suspended from his position.
The veteran journalist said he summarized reports using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s NotebookLM and did not check whether the quotes from those summaries were accurate. He then published it in his Substack newsletter.
The errors were highlighted by an investigation by NRC, Mediahuis’ own publisher, where Vandermeersch was editor-in-chief in the 2010s. NRC claimed Vandermeersch published “dozens” of false citations and…
