Reporters at this news site are AI bots. OpenAI's appears to be funding it
A news site called AcutusWire, which presents itself as a source of independent journalism, appears to be fully automated, using AI bots to generate articles and conduct interviews under fake reporter names. Investigations reveal the site’s content is overwhelmingly AI-generated, with minimal human oversight, and its operators have left technical traces showing an internal AI-driven editorial process. Despite claiming to offer expert-sourced reporting, the site lifts quotes from existing content, uses anonymous sources strategically, and has ties to a Republican PR firm. Evidence suggests OpenAI may be funding the project, though this has not been officially confirmed.
- ▪AcutusWire publishes AI-generated articles using an automated system that includes AI background context and question prompts to generate stories.
- ▪The site’s source code and API expose internal AI editorial reviews, with most articles published despite AI flags indicating they need revision.
- ▪Reporters like 'Michael Chen' are AI bots that send interview requests, and real experts who respond unknowingly provide quotes to software.
- ▪Patrick Hynes, a Republican PR executive whose firm represents clients mentioned in Acutus stories, is linked to promoting the site and appears as an uncredited source.
- ▪The site’s infrastructure suggests it was designed to be crawled by AI models, with technical files like ai-plugin.json and llms.txt present in its codebase.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Last week, Nathan Calvin, vice president and general counsel of the advocacy group Encode, forwarded me a screenshot of an email he had received. The sender, a reporter named Michael Chen, was seeking comment for a story about an AI bill in Tennessee for a publication called The Wire by Acutus.The email Encode received from “Michael Chen.”Something was off about the email. The full title of the article was shared in advance, the framing was highly loaded, and the only format offered was “written Q&A.” Web and social media searches turned up no one by the name “Michael Chen” publicly associated with Acutus.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Modelrepublic.
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