The Garforth Gazette

Hello everyone! How have you all been?

It has occurred to me that The Garforth Gazette has never given its stance on AI usage for the publication- and let me be frank in saying that from writing to editing to transcribing to the investigative process itself, no AI is used. The only instance I can think of is when you look up things on Google and it instantly shows you an AI answer (but I usually always check the sources behind those and use them directly!)

The reason this topic has come up is because I have noticed something troubling. AI ‘journalism’ is on the rise. While I was researching Garforth today on the internet, I came across a site titled ‘The Leeds Times’, a ‘citizen journalism’ publication that I had neither seen nor heard anything about before around here. It claimed to cover 10 different areas of Leeds, including Garforth, and the news in them, but what immediately stood out to me is that the article I clicked came across as AI-generated, and also that basic facts were wrong.

‘Become TLT Reporter’ (no, not Become A TLT Reporter) and ‘Street Journalism Training Programme (Online Course)’ stood out to me as subsections. To write for ‘The Leeds Times’, you would have to complete a lengthy online course (created by them, of course) covering several different areas of journalism… but when I clicked on the link to enrol, it was broken.

Another thing that caught my eye was the Code of Ethics. It stated that ‘We clearly indicate where AI has assisted in content creation — including images, video, or substantial editorial support. Readers always know when technology is involved.’ Strangely enough, the articles that read as if AI-generated did not disclose any AI usage. If I had never clicked on this Code and was less familiar with AI ‘writing’ styles, I might not have even caught that anything was not written by a human.

However, observing this website made me wonder if anything here was written by a human. And I was not the only one…

‘The Leeds Times’ is owned by the ‘Times Intelligence Media Group’, which owns similar ‘citizen journalism’ titles in many major cities across the UK, including London, Edinburgh, Birmingham, and more. The group describes themselves as a ‘news-driven media and public relations organization focused on building credible visibility through journalism, regional intelligence, and data-informed communication.’

Sound like it was written by AI? Of course it does. On December 11, 2025, the ‘Press Gazette’ ran an article about another one of the parent company’s efforts, ‘London News North’. An exerpt details…

‘The North London News website is publishing articles about areas including Barnet, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Havering, Islington and Brent.

But several contain inaccuracies and all appear to be regurgitations of stories from real news websites like the Barnet Post, MyLondon and The Standard.

Several stories appear to have accidentally left in AI prompts or parts of an AI reply. Multiple stories have “Inverted Pyramid Structure” or “Inverted Pyramid News Structure” as subheadings.’

This article prompted me to wonder what inaccuracies were the most jarring in that article about Garforth that I instantly knew to disprove. Perhaps it was that one of the best places to observe nature in Garforth, according to ‘The Leeds Times’, was a place named Garforth Linear Park.

Garforth Linear Park doesn’t exist.

So, what about a park that we know exists? Barleyhill Road Park is quoted: ‘Barley Hill Park, situated closer to the main commercial district, features managed sports pitches, community bowling greens, and the Garforth Skate Park.’

That’s great, but… Garforth Skate Park is next to Glebelands Recreation Ground, smack dab in the centre of Garforth… approximately a 19-minute, 0.8-mile walk from Barleyhill Road Park. They aren’t even in the same part of the town.

What’s more troubling to me, though, is that this article was billed for tourists- people who scarcely know Garforth. It was the first in Google’s posts about Garforth in the last week. For less AI-cautious travellers, a car could have driven around in circles looking for a park that never existed.

And notably, despite displaying significant misinformation, there are still claims of an editorial team. Oh, and they still run ads and collect user data!

Worryingly, too, these articles are applying themselves to matters of mental healthcare and psychiatry. One of the first recommended articles after ‘Ultimate Tourist Guide: The Best Things to Do in Garforth’ is ‘How to get an ADHD or autism diagnosis in Leeds’. How are these two things even related? Given a quick glance at the article, I can see wild variance in price quotations for a diagnosis and a LOT of unverified statistics. People who may have these neurodiversities deserve better.

In conclusion, please be careful when reviewing news sources and only go for facts that can be verified and that you can trust. Does it intuitively sound stilted, wrong and like it hasn’t been written by a real person? Where are they getting these facts from? Is this a publication you know of… if not, where did it originate from?

There are many sites like ‘The Leeds Times’ out there. However, there are many independent journalists who are working every day to bring people proper news. Being discerning over the media you consume is, in most cases, not a bad thing.

Thank you for reading my PSA!