AI local news network shuts down after plagiarism found
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Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
An AI-powered local news network shut down after Axios Richmond's questions about copied content on its Henrico site grew into a broader plagiarism scandal.
Why it matters: The collapse of Nota News shows the growing risks of using AI to scale local journalism without clear editorial standards and oversight.
Catch up quick: This week, Axios first reported that AI-powered sites had launched in Henrico and Chesterfield as part of Nota, which was testing a national automated push to fill news deserts and cover county governments.
- Henrico Citizen founder and publisher Tom Lappas told Axios that multiple stories on Nota's Henrico site were "stolen" versions of the Citizen's reporting and that staff photos had been used without permission.
- Axios reached out to Nota about those issues on Friday, March 27.
- That same day, Nota CEO Josh Brandau responded saying the company "immediately pulled the work down" after learning of the concerns.
The latest: Nota took down additional stories over the weekend, according to Poynter.
- Axios published its initial story on Monday, March 30. That afternoon, Nota fired Jorge Rodríguez, the Guatemala-based reporter overseeing the Henrico and Chesterfield sites, according to Poynter.
- By Tuesday, the company had shut down all 11 sites in the network, which spanned from California to Georgia.
- Brandau told Poynter that the takedown was to conduct an internal review into the issues raised by Axios Richmond and said the sites were likely closing for good.
What they're saying: "No one from Nota has reached out to apologize or explain how this happened," Lappas told Axios on Friday.
- "Supporting news organizations that do things the right way is as necessary now as it's ever been," he added. "Because we are seeing what the alternative might look like."
By the numbers: Poynter found over 70 examples dating back to October that included content lifted from at least 29 outlets and 53 journalists.
Zoom in: While Brandau had previously told Axios that every story is "fact-checked and written by our editorial staff," Rodríguez told Poynter he repurposed stories from local outlets using Nota's AI tools and published the rewritten versions under his byline.
- A demo on Nota's site also shows its internal tool can draft stories.
- Rodríguez, who said he wanted to apologize to the impacted reporters and was told the sites weren't meant to be public, also told Poynter that "I don't believe Nota is a journalistic company at all."
The intrigue: Despite Nota saying it used Northwestern Medill's news desert data to pick the "the first wave of counties" in the network, Axios Local reporters told Axios Richmond that multiple sites weren't in counties Medill listed as deserts.
- Some, like Johnson County in Kansas, already had dedicated local outlets.
Brandau didn't respond to Axios' requests for comment Tuesday, after an Axios review found all of Nota's news sites had been taken down, or Friday after Poynter's story was published.