Editor's note: This story was originally published by The Florida Trib.
When The Florida Trib began digging into an AI-generated “local news outlet” that had cropped up in South Florida, we had no idea that the investigation would uncover a national network of fake local news sites – or that we would be able to unmask the man behind it all.
In a world awash in digital mysteries that disappear down the rabbit holes of the AI-addled internet, The Trib was actually able to get to the bottom of this bizarre whodunit, thanks to a collaboration with “Question Everything,” a podcast made by the LA-based NPR station KCRW and the audio production company Placement Theory.
Our investigation found that the South Florida Standard and its “local journalists” were in fact creations of artificial intelligence — complete with fake headshots and made-up biographies peppered with South Florida cliches, their bylines plastered on articles that were lifted from actual news outlets, recycled through AI and republished.
Four months after we published our findings, the South Florida Standard remains offline — and its domain name now redirects visitors to The Trib’s investigation of that very site.
Brian Reed, the host of “Question Everything,” first heard about the South Florida Standard from a reporter friend of his named Blake Morrison, who The Trib tipped off about the site because one of its purported staff members shared the same name: Blake Morrison. Was it a ploy to imbue the fake site with a little journalistic credibility? Or perhaps just a coincidence?
The real Blake Morrison flagged the strange discovery for his friend at “Question Everything,” who each week on the show digs into “how the truth gets buried, distorted and denied — and the ways people are fighting to make it matter again.”
It was a producer on the show, Zach St. Louis, who played a key role in cracking the code on the South Florida Standard, helping identify digital fingerprints hidden within the site and connecting it to more than a dozen similar AI-driven news outlets across the country.
It was that trail of digital breadcrumbs that ultimately led to the man behind it all: Drew Chapin, a tech executive in Philadelphia with a checkered — and criminal — past. The real story of why he built the sites is stranger than any of us could have expected.
Now, the team at “Question Everything” has published its own story unraveling the “curious case of the fake Florida newsroom.”
To learn what that team found — and hear directly from Chapin himself — take a listen to the show here.
Kate Payne is The Florida Trib’s state government reporter. She can be reached at kate.payne@floridatrib.org.
