For almost two decades, I’ve tracked the decline of local journalism, but a recent viral story about 47 Alabama newspapers being gutted by a right-wing media startup felt particularly bleak. The piece, published on a site called The Editorial, detailed how a company allegedly bought these papers, replaced staff with AI, and ultimately left behind a trail of “news deserts.” As someone deeply embedded in media circles, I found the story plausible—until I started digging. When I checked the supposedly defunct papers, I found they were very much alive and well. The entire narrative was a fabrication, complete with fake corporate entities, invented advertisers, and non-existent residents.
The realization that the story was a total lie sent shockwaves through the local news community. Editors at the affected papers were understandably outraged, calling out the “AI alligator” that had manufactured a tragedy where none existed. Soon after, The Editorial retracted the piece, citing fact-verification concerns, but the damage was done. This wasn’t merely a sloppy mistake; it was part of a larger, systemic pattern. I discovered that this site had been churning out similar, equally false autopsy reports on local newspapers across the country, using a consistent, convincing, and artificial tone that mimicked real investigative reporting.
Who is behind this? The site’s footprint is as murky as its content. Its domain registration is hidden, and its supposed roster of elite journalists—people who claim to have worked for The Atlantic, ProPublica, or the BBC—do not exist in any professional database. The only real-world connection is a Finnish software developer whose name appears in corporate records related to the site’s payment processing. It’s puzzling: why would a developer in Finland spend time writing elaborate, fake obituaries for community newspapers in small-town America?
The mystery deepens when you look past the fake local news and examine the site’s broader geopolitical agenda. A significant portion of The Editorial is dedicated to Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Japan, with stories relentlessly painting a picture of Western weakness against a rising, inevitable Chinese dominance. These pieces follow a repetitive, cinematic formula, using “nondescript conference rooms” and “leaked documents” to build a narrative of strategic defeat. It’s a sophisticated, automated form of psychological operation, blending fabricated local tragedies with high-stakes international fear-mongering.
Whether this is the work of a lone wolf trying to game the system for ad revenue or a state-backed influence operation remains unclear. The site’s content serves a dual purpose: it creates a constant, low-level stream of chaos and hopelessness. By weaving tales about the collapse of American civic institutions, it feeds into a broader narrative of national decay, while its foreign policy coverage works to project strength for specific regimes. It is a digital hall of mirrors where real issues—like the actual crisis in local news—are hijacked and weaponized to serve an agenda that most readers wouldn’t even think to question.
Ultimately, this bizarre episode serves as a sobering reminder of how AI has dismantled the barriers to entry for disinformation. Fakery has become so cheap and accessible that bad actors can now target even the most niche sectors with professional-sounding, emotionally resonant content. It’s no longer just about viral memes or suspicious bots; it’s about the strategic simulation of reality. We’ve entered an era where, if you aren’t careful, the news you believe may be nothing more than a ghost story written by an algorithm designed to undermine your trust in everything.