Chicago Tribune Sues Perplexity AI for Inventing Entire Articles and Attributing Them to Real Reporters. 'Our Journalists Are Being Quoted Saying Things They Never Wrote.'

On December 4, 2025, the Chicago Tribune filed a federal lawsuit alleging Perplexity AI not only scraped its paywalled content but fabricated entire articles it attributed to Tribune bylines. Readers could ask Perplexity about local news and receive fully hallucinated stories — with fake quotes, fake sources, and real reporter names. One invented article described a downtown shooting that never happened, attributed to a metro reporter who was on maternity leave. The suit seeks damages and an injunction on 'false attribution' outputs.