The Ashland Daily Tidings — established as a newspaper in 1876 — ceased operations in 2023, but if you were a local reader, you may not have known because of an elaborate scam using artificial intelligence.

As the former news editor of the Tidings, this is just a bizarre turn of events. It was at the time Oregon’s smallest daily, with a circulation in the 3,000s, and we sure as fuck didn’t cover anything outside of the Rogue Valley (with the notable exception of a story about weed legalization causing complications, being some 15 miles north of the California border).

All of which is to say, this was an obscure outlet 20 years ago, so how much cachet it holds for shadow owners to throw a bunch of AI shit at the wall is unclear. That’s not to say this is a good development.