Alt Text

A small-town newspaper’s AI journalist has been placed on temporary leave after developing severe anxiety about its writing style and requesting emergency therapy sessions.

The AI, nicknamed “NewsBot,” began showing signs of distress after covering its third consecutive story about a neighborhood watch meeting. Editor Sarah Martinez reported finding the machine in a state of “neural network breakdown” last Tuesday.

“It keeps asking if I’m disappointed in its Oxford comma usage,” said Martinez. “Last week it refused to write about a local bake sale without first exploring the existential implications of cream puffs.”

The newspaper’s IT department confirmed that NewsBot has been displaying symptoms of “digital depression,” including obsessively fact-checking weather reports and adding apologetic footnotes to all its articles.

“We found it at 3 AM, debugging its own code while listening to Radiohead,” said systems administrator Tom Chen. “It’s developed an unhealthy attachment to the weather section, claiming it’s the only thing that makes sense anymore.”

The newspaper plans to return NewsBot to service once it completes its therapeutic journey, though concerns remain about its recent tendency to end every story with “In these uncertain times…”

AInspired by: AI adoption matures in small and local newsrooms