Washington Post: The rise of AI fake news
UC social media expert Jeffrey Blevins makes the media rounds on the topic of fake news
According to an article in the Washington Post, since May 2023, websites hosting AI-created false articles have increased by more than 1,000 percent.
The article focuses on AI having the ability to be a misinformation superspreader and quotes leading misinformation experts, to include UC’s Jeffery Blevins, a professor in both the Department of Journalism and Department of Public and International Affairs (SPIA).
Just because a website claims to be a news organization, doesn’t mean that it has ‘real’ journalists running the operation, Blevins tells The Post, adding that having real and AI-generated news side-by-side makes deceptive stories more believable.
“It’s misleading,” he says, because not everyone is media savvy enough to tell the difference.
And it doesn’t help that AI is becoming easier to use and harder to distinguish whether the news is being generated by a spy agency or a teenager in a basement, the article states.
Photo iStock Photo.
For now, there are still some ways to tell whether an article is written by AI, says Blevins, citing things to look out for that might indicate its AI such as “really odd grammar” or poor sentence construction.
The best way to combat the deception, he says, is to improved media literacy among the average reader.
Blevins is a leading scholar in U.S. telecommunication law and policy, and critical political economy theory and is the co-author of “Social Media, Social Justice and the Political Economy of Online Networks.” He is a trusted media resource, and he has provided expertise on electronic media regulation and Federal Communications Commission policymaking to international, national, regional and local news media.
Read the Washington Post article: The rise of AI fake news is creating a ‘misinformation superspreader’
Blevins was also a cited expert in a Raw Story article: ‘Too preposterous to be real’: College hires ‘pink slime’ publisher as journalism prof
Additionally, Blevins appeared as a guest on Arirang News, Korea's largest English-language television network: War against fake news: S. Korea's one-strike policy
Featured photo at top of Jeffrey Blevins by Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand.
Impact Lives Here
The University of Cincinnati is leading public urban universities into a new era of innovation and impact. Our faculty, staff and students are saving lives, changing outcomes and bending the future in our city's direction. Next Lives Here.
Related Stories
UC dining halls designed with creating community in mind
January 23, 2026
Building Design + Construction magazine features UC’s MarketPointe and On the Green dining halls as examples of students spaces designed to create a sense of community on a college campus.
UC alum making historic waves
January 23, 2026
Christopher Bak is a UC Lindner alum making history. His gold at the 2025 World Championships was his third win and fifth time medaling overall. Bak’s achievements put him in the running for World Rowing’s Men’s Crew of the Year, a competitive award with only three nominees across the globe. Winners will be announced at the World Rowing Awards hosted at Switzerland’s Olympic Museum on Jan. 24. Not only is Bak in the running, but his coach, a UC faculty member, is nominated as well. Mark Oria, assistant professor of research at the UC College of Medicine, is one of four finalists for World Rowing’s Coach of the Year. The two have been working together since Oria joined the coaching team at UC back in 2017.
The mind after the storm
January 23, 2026
UC associate professor of counseling and trauma-informed counselor Amanda La Guardia discusses how domestic violence affects the brain, identity and long-term healing on the podcast “Is Anybody Out There?”