Between errors and ethical slips: the tentacles of programmatic advertising in the production of news with AI

This article focuses on a singular aspect of the transformation of the contemporary journalistic ecosystem: the relationship between editorial and advertising functions in journalism, complexified by the emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools. The objective is to analyze the agency of AI tools in platformized journalistic production, focusing on the ethical implications arising from the relationship with programmatic advertising. To this end, the case of Portal Terra and the partner site Giro 10 is analyzed, in which articles produced by AI in June 2026 contained the explicit citation of fictitious sources. The analysis of the empirical material of the correction of the error and its repercussion shows procedural flaws and transparency with the reader. The in-depth interviews with the editors of Terra and Giro 10 highlight the ethical problem of guiding journalistic production to meet the demands of programmatic advertising.