The Arena Group, the publisher of Sports Illustrated and Men's Journal, has fired its chief executive and two other top executives after it was called out for publishing articles written using artificial intelligence bylined by fake authors.
CEO Ross Levinsohn was removed from the company on Monday; Arena had already terminated the employment of Chief Operating Officer Andrew Kraft and the company's president of media, Rob Barrett. The company also fired Julie Fenster, the company's general counsel.
Sports Illustrated — one of the most revered sports magazines in American history — came under fire last month after Futurism reported that the magazine had begun publishing AI-generated content bylined by AI-generated authors using stock photo profile pictures. After the news outlet reached out to Arena with questions about the articles, Arena removed the AI-generated authors from Sports Illustrated's website, according to Futurism.
"The content is absolutely AI-generated," a person familiar with the creation of Sports Illustrated content told Futurism, "no matter how much they say that it's not."
Another Arena-owned publication, The Street, was also caught using AI-generated authors and content, Futurism reported. The financial publication was co-founded by CNBC host Jim Cramer and sold to Arena in 2019 for $16.5 million.
Arena defended itself in a statement posted online after the report was published, writing that the articles viewed by Futurism were product reviews licensed by a third-party contractor, AdVon Commerce. The company added that it was conducting an internal review of the content, and an initial investigation found that articles were not AI-generated.
"However, we have learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudo name in certain articles to protect author privacy – actions we strongly condemn – and we are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership," a spokesperson said on X, formerly Twitter, at the time.
Manoj Bhargava, the founder of the company behind 5-hour Energy and majority investor in Arena, has been named the interim CEO, according to the company. Last week, Bhargava led a call with Arena's staff where he ranted about recycling being "useless," said "PowerPoints are illegal" and a waste of time, and told employees to "stop doing dumb stuff," Front Office Sports reported, citing sources familiar with the presentation.
“No one is important,” Bhargava told staffers, according to Front Office Sports. “I am not important. … The amount of useless stuff you guys do is staggering.”
Levinsohn on Monday took to LinkedIn to announce that he would be leaving Arena after more than four years at the company, although he neglected to disclose that he had been fired. The career media veteran had previously held executive positions at Tribune Publishing Co. and Yahoo.
"I've worked at some stellar places with rock stars across the board, but this team at Arena is as good as it gets, and as we close the sale of the majority of the business to Simplified Inventions, I know it is in good hands for the future," Levinsohn wrote.