German public broadcaster ZDF on Friday recalled a New York correspondent after AI-generated images were screened during a news report on ICE immigration raids in the United States. ZDF said its journalist Nicola Albrecht, 50, used video taken from the internet in a report on children terrified by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement operations. One clip was AI-generated and not labelled as such, and another in fact showed a Florida arrest from 2022. "The damage caused by disregarding journalistic rules is considerable," ZDF editor-in-chief Bettina Schausten said in a statement. "The AI-generated material should not have been used without journalistic justification and without being categorised according to ZDF's internal rules for the use of AI-generated material," the broadcaster said.

Source: The Local February 21, 2026 21:41 UTC