Casdorff himself acknowledged the incident and called it a “huge mistake.” He had harmed the paper and himself, the newspaper quoted him as saying. “I used AI for the texts. I should have made that clear and therefore should not have published them,” Casdorff said.
The editorial board emphasized that while AI is used as a tool for individual work steps in the newsroom, it must not take over the core of journalistic work. “Journalistic judgment, weighting of information, analytical classification, and linguistic design must always remain the responsibility of the authors,” it said. Writing entire texts with AI violates editorial guidelines.
The newspaper sees its journalistic credibility endangered by Casdorff’s actions. An internal investigation has been announced, which will examine with external support whether AI was used improperly elsewhere. The Tagesspiegel did not disclose how the violations came to light.
Casdorff was co-editor-in-chief of the Tagesspiegel from 2004 to 2018 alongside Lorenz Maroldt, later co-publisher, and since 2025 editor-at-large. Most recently, he regularly published commentaries, obituaries, and news articles.
Source: www.zeit.de
