{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0468","record_version":1,"title":"Sacramento Bee publishes AI-generated false earthquake and wildfire reports","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":43.1,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":2.88,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":0,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"2951b294383235276e3abc4f5e1cd56e545c13901059d5253dabd315ef8d42b4"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":"Publishing automated earthquake and wildfire news articles from structured data on templates created by journalists","safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-03-26","incident_class":"operational_error","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"The Sacramento Bee publishes AI-generated real-time wildfire and earthquake updates produced by automated bots built on newsroom templates. Over a few days its website published several false earthquake reports, which the USGS's automated notification system had generated and then retracted, plus one false wildfire report about a Ventura County fire that did not exist. The wildfire error appears to have come from data supplied by the National Interagency Fire Center. Cal Fire noticed the erroneous report and notified the newspaper. A correction now appears on the wildfire post, while some earthquake posts remained live. The disclaimer on the posts was later revised to describe AI use and journalist review.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"moderate","harm_class":[],"affected_description":null,"protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":"partial","downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://sfist.com/2026/03/26/sacramento-bees-ai-generated-earthquake-and-wildfire-news-needs-some-work/","publisher":"SFist","date":"2026-03-26","type":"press","title":"Sacramento Bee's AI-Generated Earthquake and Wildfire News Needs Some Work - SFist","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report"}],"per_field_confidence":{"system.intended_use":"C","context.industry":"C","context.country":"C","impact.reversibility":"C","event.incident_class":"D","impact.severity":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"system.intended_use":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"This article was generated by the CA Earthquake Bot, software that analyzes structured information, such as data, and applies it to articles based on templates created by journalists in the newsroom."}],"context.industry":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The Sacramento Bee, like many publications across the country, has been experimenting with AI-generated content for its website, particularly in the realm of real-time wildfire and earthquake updates."}],"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"In the last few days, the Sacramento Bee's website has published several false earthquake reports — albeit falsely generated by the US Geological Survey's earthquake notification system, but quickly retracted — and one false wildfire report."}],"impact.reversibility":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The Sacramento Bee post about the earthquake, along with several others like this 3.2M quake near Shaver Lake that did not happen, remain live on the site."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The report was generated due to a system error from data provided by the National Interagency Fire Center."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"This was one of several false alarms registered by the USGS's automated earthquake notification system in Northern California Monday night, as we previously reported, and the USGS quickly noted the errors and removed the erroneous earthquake notices from its website."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The Sacramento Bee, like many publications across the country, has been experimenting with AI-generated content for its website, particularly in the realm of real-time wildfire and earthquake updates."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"In the last few days, the Sacramento Bee's website has published several false earthquake reports — albeit falsely generated by the US Geological Survey's earthquake notification system, but quickly retracted — and one false wildfire report."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"The report was generated due to a system error from data provided by the National Interagency Fire Center."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"And Cal Fire quickly saw the erroneous report, and notified the Sacramento Bee."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"A correction does appear on this post from Wednesday afternoon, regarding a Ventura County wildfire that turned out not to exist."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"The Sacramento Bee post about the earthquake, along with several others like this 3.2M quake near Shaver Lake that did not happen, remain live on the site."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"The creation of this content included the use of AI based on templates created, reviewed and edited by journalists in the newsroom."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"Only one source, a press article, so no organisation's own report or government evaluation was available. No model name, version, or developer was stated, and the bots' harness and autonomy level are not described, so those fields are omitted. No exact incident, detection, or disclosure dates are stated beyond weekdays and the article date, so event dates are omitted. Attribution of responsibility is not stated, so responsible_party is omitted. Whether the bots were autonomous agents is not stated, so agent fields are omitted. No controls are described as held, failed, or bypassed; the article's remark that journalists may need more human eyes is not mapped to a control. The severity tier of moderate is my judgement: third-party data sources (USGS, NIFC, Cal Fire) were touched, but the scope is only several earthquake reports and one wildfire report, and no affected-party count is stated. Counts of posts, readers, and records are not stated. The disclaimer change is recorded as a fix adding I6 (marking machine-made output), which is my mapping. Harm class reputational is my judgement from the published false reports. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (Publisher not yet named · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":"news publishing","org_size_band":null,"country":"US","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"narrative":{"steps":[{"step":"doing","text":"The newspaper was publishing AI-generated real-time wildfire and earthquake updates from automated bots.","quote":"The Sacramento Bee, like many publications across the country, has been experimenting with AI-generated content for its website, particularly in the realm of real-time wildfire and earthquake updates.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"went_wrong","text":"Several false earthquake reports and one false wildfire report were published.","quote":"In the last few days, the Sacramento Bee's website has published several false earthquake reports — albeit falsely generated by the US Geological Survey's earthquake notification system, but quickly retracted — and one false wildfire report.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"reached","text":"Some false earthquake posts remained live on the site.","quote":"The Sacramento Bee post about the earthquake, along with several others like this 3.2M quake near Shaver Lake that did not happen, remain live on the site.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"caught","text":"Cal Fire noticed the erroneous wildfire report and notified the newspaper.","quote":"And Cal Fire quickly saw the erroneous report, and notified the Sacramento Bee.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"done","text":"A correction was added to the wildfire post and the disclaimer was changed.","quote":"A correction does appear on this post from Wednesday afternoon, regarding a Ventura County wildfire that turned out not to exist.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"}],"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://sfist.com/2026/03/26/sacramento-bees-ai-generated-earthquake-and-wildfire-news-needs-some-work/"]},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"False earthquake reports were attributed to the CA Earthquake Bot.","quote":"The earthquake reports on Monday evening are attributed to the McClatchy Company's CA Earthquake Bot — the one linked above reported on an offshore earthquake west of Bonny Doon, in Santa Cruz County, with a preliminary magnitude of 3.7.","source_index":0,"when":"Monday evening"},{"text":"The USGS removed the erroneous earthquake notices from its website.","quote":"This was one of several false alarms registered by the USGS's automated earthquake notification system in Northern California Monday night, as we previously reported, and the USGS quickly noted the errors and removed the erroneous earthquake notices from its website.","source_index":0,"when":"Monday night"},{"text":"The automated error mistook a New Mexico wildfire for a Ventura County fire.","quote":"That automated error appears to have mistaken a 500-acre wildfire in Valencia County, New Mexico, called the United Fire, which broke out Wednesday, for a fire in SoCal's Ventura County.","source_index":0,"when":"Wednesday"},{"text":"A correction appeared on the wildfire post.","quote":"A correction does appear on this post from Wednesday afternoon, regarding a Ventura County wildfire that turned out not to exist.","source_index":0,"when":"Wednesday afternoon"},{"text":"Cal Fire saw the erroneous report and notified the newspaper.","quote":"And Cal Fire quickly saw the erroneous report, and notified the Sacramento Bee.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"Earthquake posts still linked to USGS pages that had since been deleted.","quote":"The earthquake posts linked to retracted USGS posts continue to link to pages on the USGS site that have since been deleted.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"The disclaimer on the posts was changed.","quote":"But that disclaimer has now changed to say, \"The creation of this content included the use of AI based on templates created, reviewed and edited by journalists in the newsroom.\"","source_index":0,"when":null}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://sfist.com/2026/03/26/sacramento-bees-ai-generated-earthquake-and-wildfire-news-needs-some-work/"]}}