Fake News So ‘Good’ That It’s Fooling Journalists; Remembering Kelly Davis, Kick-Ass Journalist and Person–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: July 2, 2026

Indy Digest: July 2, 2026

Earlier this week, a story in a publication called The Editorial, about a right-wing media organization buying up a bunch of Alabama newspapers—and replacing the reporting with AI-generated content—caught my eye. A bunch of journalists were sharing it on social media, so I clicked on it and read it.

Joshua Benton, the senior writer for Nieman Lab, a journalism support and research organization, had an experience similar to mine. He writes:

According to the link aggregator Sill, 18 people I follow on Bluesky had shared a link to it within a few hours.

The headline was a grabber: “The Ghost Paper That Ate Alabama: How a Media Startup Killed 47 Weekly Newspapers and No One Noticed.” It was a site named The Editorial, whose name rang a vague bell for me.

I clicked through. The subhead: “Inside the rise and collapse of 1819 News, the right-wing media chain that bought up rural weeklies, fired their staff, and replaced them with AI-generated content.” …

The story in The Editorial, by Elena Marchetti, was meaty—about 1,900 words—and seemed to feature some good on-the-ground work. It reported that, in 2023, a new company named Alabama Community News LLC spent $3.2 million—money it got from 1819 News—buying up 47 different weekly newspapers in small towns across the state. The goal: to “use the papers’ subscriber lists and advertising relationships to build a statewide conservative media empire.”

I read the piece from The Editorial, was horrified and a little depressed, and moved on with my day.

Fortunately, Benton’s job is to report on journalism shenanigans such as these, so he did some digging. And it turns out that this story—a story that I, and myriad journalism colleagues, thought was legit—was completely fake.

As Benton notes, this piece—and other fake pieces he wound up finding on The Editorial—were very believable. He writes:

These stories are, to me, surprisingly good. Not good as in true, of course, but good as in effective at keeping up the illusion of reality. For me, they have only a light whiff of AI writing—mostly when people are quoted. (Example: “‘This is not a newspaper,’ she says. ‘This is a ghost.’”) The newspaper names are real; there are lots of real names and institutions sprinkled in among the fakery. They’re long and they hold together.

Benton does an excellent job of showing how much of what is on The Editorial website is complete B.S., and he tracks down (as best he can) who’s responsible for the site, and why those responsible may be doing what they do. The phrase “international geopolitical intrigue” would apply to his findings; I highly recommend reading his story.

But the reason why I mention all of this here is not the international geopolitical intrigue. I mention it because it’s a stark reminder of how much made-up, deceptive fake news is out there—and how “good” it’s getting in terms of being able to fool even the most knowledgeable of people.

My mistake: I didn’t verify that The Editorial was a legitimate news source. (To add to the confusion: Benton points out there is indeed a real, unrelated news source named The Editorial.) Fortunately, I didn’t share or mention the piece, on social media or otherwise, before now.

Learn from my mistake: Unless you’re sure a news story is coming from a source you know and trust, verify, verify, verify. The fakers are getting better and better.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• The Coachella Valley will soon be the site of yet another big sports event. From a press release: “The WTA (women’s tennis) on Wednesday announced the 2026 WTA Finals will be held at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, California, from November 8-15. The WTA Finals is one of the most prestigious events in global sport, featuring the world’s top singles players and doubles teams. … As the season-ending championship of the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz, the WTA Finals brings together the sport’s biggest stars. ‘The Indian Wells Tennis Garden provides an exceptional stage for the WTA Finals,’ said Valerie Camillo, Chair of the WTA. ‘From its world-class facilities and passionate fan base to its proven ability to deliver premier tennis events, the venue offers everything needed to showcase the very best of women’s tennis. We are excited to bring the WTA Finals to Southern California and continue building one of the premier championships in global sport.’”

• For some annoying news about real newspapers, we turn to Poynter: “As the nation celebrates its 250th birthday, readers picking up a copy of their local paper this weekend might expect photos of fireworks or July Fourth celebrations to dominate the front page. But if their local paper is owned by Lee Enterprises, they will instead likely see a large portrait of the company’s chairman, billionaire David Hoffmann, under the headline ‘NEW HOPE FOR LOCAL NEWS,’ according to a mockup distributed internally earlier this week and viewed by Poynter. The company—which owns titles like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Buffalo News and the Omaha World-Herald—has asked its newspapers to run a three-story package about Hoffmann on their front pages over the holiday weekend, starting Friday. The stories, written by senior reporter David McCumber, are highly laudatory of Hoffmann, covering his recent decision to invest tens of millions of dollars into Lee, his history of philanthropic giving and his previous business successes. Several people told Poynter that to their knowledge, the package marks the first time Lee has directed its papers to run a certain news story, raising questions about editorial interference.” Ugh.

• For some annoying news about AI, we turn to Wired: “Fears about AI tools capable of autonomous hacking usually involve nightmare scenarios like the theft of nuclear launch codes or zeroed-out bank reserves. Far more plausible, it turns out, is asking AI to gain super-administrator access on a ticketing website and then issuing yourself and all of your friends free VIP backstage passes to Bonnaroo. That was the discovery of security researcher Ian Carroll, who used the AI tool Claude Opus 4.7 in April to discover a technique that allowed him full access to the systems of Front Gate Tickets, which handles ticketing for practically every major US music festival, from Lollapalooza and South by Southwest to Austin City Limits. Carroll found that Front Gate, which like Ticketmaster is a subsidiary of the event company Live Nation Entertainment, had a bug in its website that he—with Claude’s help—could exploit to gain access to millions of customer or staff records and freely issue tickets for any event, of any value, to himself or whoever he chose.”

• Also from Wired (and if you hit their paywall, I recommend subscribing and supporting their amazing work) comes this headline: “Goose, a New Gay Dating App, Appears to Be a Psyop.” What? The lede: “The Instagram Close Friends Story for @miles.sumrall shows an affable-looking guy with curly dark hair and an expertly groomed mustache beaming as he floats on the water. ‘You’re receiving this because you’re exactly the type of person we’re building this for,’ the caption reads, accompanied by a code for an invite to a ‘members only community.’ The link leads to a login for Goose, a dating and friendship app for gay men with the slogan ‘for the boys,’ which allows users to ‘meet guys through the life you already have,’ according to its website. The problem is that @miles.sumrall does not appear to be real. Neither does @danielmmulugeta, the cute dark-haired influencer who shared the above caption, with the exact same verbiage, on his Close Friends’ Stories.”

• Today’s recall news involves … potato chips! USA Today explains: “A recall involving hundreds of thousands of bags of popular Zapp’s and Dirty brand potato chips has been classified under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s most serious warning level due to the risk of salmonella contamination. The FDA classified the voluntary recall as a Class I recall, its highest risk category, on July 1. According to the agency, a Class I recall means there is ‘a reasonable probability’ that consuming or being exposed to the affected product could cause serious adverse health consequences or death. The chips were first recalled in May by Utz Quality Foods, a subsidiary of Utz Brands, after the company learned that a seasoning made with dry milk powder supplied by a third-party manufacturer could potentially contain salmonella. Though the affected seasoning batches tested negative before being used, Utz said it issued the recall out of an abundance of caution.”

• And finally … Southern California lost one of its most amazing journalists—and people—with the death of Kelly Davis, a force of nature who died on Wednesday at the age of 53, after a long battle with cancer. David A. Meyers writes for the Times of San Diego that Kelly “left one of the most consequential records in the history of San Diego journalism. Kelly helped launch San Diego CityBeat in 2002 and became one of its driving forces. In 2013, she and journalist Dave Maass published a five-part investigative series documenting that San Diego County jails had the highest inmate death rate among California’s largest jail systems and that many of those deaths were preventable. That series won awards, changed policies, led to new suicide prevention training and saved lives that will never know her name. Then San Diego County came after her. When a widow sued the county for negligence following an inmate’s death, county lawyers subpoenaed Kelly’s private notes, interviews and recordings—the protected work product of a journalist who had told a truth they wished she hadn’t. Kelly refused. Media outlets across the country condemned the move as retaliation. A judge issued a stay. Kelly never flinched. … In 2019, she co-authored ‘Dying Behind Bars,’ a six-month Union-Tribune investigation that prompted a state audit of the county jail system. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed reform legislation that followed directly from her work. She was named San Diego Journalist of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists in 2023. More than a dozen family members of people who had died in custody attended the banquet not because they were asked to, but because she had made them feel seen.” Fuck cancer!

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