Six years ago I wrote about a highly questionable online news site that went by the name of Las Vegas Herald. “First published 1900,” it declared on its website. This was an obviously bogus claim since the population of Las Vegas then was only 18 (the city would not even come into existence until 1905). The site consisted of rewritten press releases and occasional stories under what seems to be phony bylines. Even before AI was well known, I suspected computers played a big role in generating the copy.
I discovered “Las Vegas Herald” was part of a worldwide network of websites with similar, almost legit-sounding names run by an organization in New Delhi, India. Its unexpected goal, I wrote then, was to “amplify favorable coverage about India and negative coverage about Pakistan.”
“Las Vegas Herald” is still around (I refuse to link to it). But now there’s a new dubious entry in the Las Vegas-as-a-pit-stop-in-sketchy-news-enterprises business. It’s called “Las Vegas Today.” It’s part of a network of sites owned by a PR firm that steals journalism produced by legitimate operations.
Futurism, a respected New York City-based tech news website, published a story yesterday blowing the lid off the collection of more than 50 websites branded as National Today. The lengthy article by flatly called the operation a “plagiarism machine” filching “original journalism at incredible scale,” with no credit to the original authors or writers. Much of National Today’s copy appears generated by AI, which means it contains errors. Although not specifically mentioned in the story, “Las Vegas Today” is one of those websites. (I am grateful to CNN’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter for highlighting the Futurism story.) Continue reading
