[continued from previous message]   
      
   Update your skills,” they wrote in a LinkedIn post.   
      
   Two of the writers on the Daily Tidings website are actually   
   correspondents for the London-based Daily Mail. Another two have actually   
   worked as journalists in Southern Oregon. One supposed writer has no   
   online presence as a journalist outside the Daily Tidings website.   
      
   An Oct. 25, 2024, screenshot of the Ashland Daily Tidings' contributor   
   page. It lists eight people as working for the small Southern Oregon media   
   outlet. The majority of the writers had their names and images stolen and   
   did not work for the company.   
   An Oct. 25, 2024, screenshot of the Ashland Daily Tidings' contributor   
   page. During OPB's reporting on the use of artificial intelligence by the   
   website's operators, many of these contributors were removed from the   
   page.   
      
   Ryan Haas / OPB   
      
   OPB used various methods to track down all of the listed reporters on the   
   Southern Oregon webpage, including searching social media and contacting   
   former employers. After OPB began reaching out to people credited on the   
   Tidings’ stories, more than half the staff disappeared from the page and   
   their bylines were replaced on existing stories. Three journalists who   
   responded to OPB’s requests for comment said they had no idea their names   
   or images were being used to produce stories for the Daily Tidings.   
      
   “Plagiarism, I think it’s called,” quipped Bert Etling, the former editor   
   of the Daily Tidings who now runs the digital nonprofit media outlet   
   Ashland.news.   
      
   Etling, who started his local journalism career in 1982 and was laid off   
   in 2019 by Rosebud Media, noticed the revived Daily Tidings soon after it   
   emerged because his own reporters saw work remarkably similar to their own   
   appearing on the webpage. The stories would have fresh headlines and the   
   writing would be tweaked, but the reporting and quotes from sources would   
   closely match work Ashland.news had previously published. OPB staff   
   members have also had their work taken and republished on the Daily   
   Tidings website with marginally changed sentences.   
      
   “They just put it in a blender and then pour it out on their page,” Etling   
   said. “It’s maddening.”   
      
   Since artificial intelligence’s wider adoption by the public in the past   
   two years, journalism has been a regular target for scams that further   
   threaten the business of producing news. A New York-based journalist   
   collective, 404 Media, was among the first to notice a trend of fraudulent   
   websites taking real stories and using AI “spinners” to rewrite the   
   articles with the goal of grabbing web traffic. Other reporting revealed a   
   Serbian DJ who pretended to operate a news outlet in a Minneapolis suburb,   
   only to leave local readers confused when they’d click stories to find AI-   
   generated content that had nothing to do with Minnesota.   
      
   The Daily Tidings appears to be the first time an Oregon news outlet has   
   stolen the identities of real journalists to trick local readers with AI-   
   generated content. The goal is apparently to deceive Oregonians into   
   giving clicks — and the resulting ad revenue — to whoever is behind the   
   website.   
      
   The source   
   The Daily Tidings wasn’t the first time Joe Minihane had his work, or his   
   identity, ripped off using AI.   
      
   In March, someone took over the webpage domain for Minihane’s personal   
   website after he didn’t pay to renew his ownership. Whoever grabbed the   
   site filled it with mundane prose that vaunted Minihane’s ability as a   
   journalist — and his ability to write essays. The purpose for the website   
   takeover appears in links subtly embedded throughout, which offer to sell   
   high school students essays for their homework.   
      
   “I find it fascinating when the bots write about you in the third person,”   
   he told OPB. “I can’t get to the bottom of these things.”   
      
   A similar type of theft may be behind whatever is happening at the Ashland   
   Daily Tidings.   
      
   The Daily Tidings claims on its website that it was acquired by Difference   
   Media, LLC, in 2021. Difference Media was founded by a father and son in   
   Texas to promote Christian music. Speaking to OPB, a company official said   
   they were not aware of the Daily Tidings and that the company owns no   
   newspapers.   
      
   OPB reached out to the operators of the Daily Tidings through the   
   website’s contact form and listed email for the paper’s news desk, but   
   received no reply.   
      
   The alleged timeline of the Difference Media purchase also does not line   
   up with the Daily Tidings’ prior ownership.   
      
   When owner Steve Saslow closed Rosebud Media in 2023, the web domain for   
   the Ashland Daily Tidings and the Medford Mail Tribune became inactive,   
   creating an opportunity for the fraudulent version to replace it.   
      
      
      
   In his first interview since closing the papers, Saslow told OPB he had   
   his attorneys pursue litigation against whomever is behind the AI-written   
   stories for copyright infringement. The lawyers told him the fraudulent   
   acts are coming from outside the United States, likely in China, and they   
   described the legal quest as akin to “pursuing a phantom.”   
      
   “They do this apparently with either existing or defunct newspapers around   
   the world,” Saslow said. “[My lawyers] said you could go and spend all   
   kinds of money, and trying to find them would be a needle in a haystack if   
   we could do it at all.”   
      
   Saslow opted not to spend that money chasing down the fraudsters. There’s   
   little doubt money is the reason behind the fraud, however.   
      
   The Daily Tidings website, despite its reliance on copyright infringement   
   and stolen identities, presents readers with banners and pop-up videos   
   from major advertisement-serving companies on the internet, such as   
   Google, YieldMo and the Trade Desk. Display ads like those on the website   
   can earn the site’s operators a few dollars for each 1,000 appearances the   
   ads make, potentially making the endless churn of stolen stories a   
   lucrative business. It’s unclear exactly how much money the Daily Tidings   
   is generating each year from such ad placements.   
      
   After being alerted to the scam by OPB, Google took action against the   
   Daily Tidings website by removing its ads from specific pages on the   
   website the tech giant viewed as violating its terms of service.   
      
   “We have strict publisher policies that govern the types of content we   
   allow to monetize. Upon reviewing the site in question, we have taken   
   action to demonetize the pages where we identified violations of these   
   policies,” spokesperson Nate Funkhouser said in an email.   
      
   The main landing page of the Daily Tidings continued to serve   
   advertisements from Google and other companies as of Dec. 2. Other   
   advertisement-serving companies that appear to be providing income to the   
   Daily Tidings did not respond to OPB’s requests for comment.   
      
   The future of local journalism   
   Saslow said he started Rosebud Media because he saw the old models for   
   local journalism had created a business that only seemed to recede as   
   online platforms advanced. From his perspective, local readers would be   
   the big losers if nothing changed.   
      
   “It really was about the true sense of journalism,” he said. “That’s why I   
   named the thing Rosebud. It was a joke from the movie ‘Citizen Kane.’ He   
   thought he could control everything and the answer was no, that’s what you   
   don’t want.”   
      
   A desire to experiment led Saslow to partner with Sinclair Broadcast Group   
   to produce some video content with his former reporters. Saslow hoped the   
   experimentation with print, video and online stories would be an   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)