An investigation into AdVon, the company behind Sports Illustrated's fake writers, finds its AI content and fake authors at the LA Times, Miami Herald, and more
FuturismMaggie Harrison
Context & Ripple Effects
This extends a pattern in which publishers have experimented with AI-assisted production, including Sports Illustrated’s publisher working with AI tools to produce material from its content library and pitch journalists. It also follows reporting that CNET’s AI-written articles required broad accuracy review after errors were found after accuracy concerns emerged.
The AdVon investigation matters because it connects synthetic copy to synthetic identities across several recognizable news brands, rather than treating AI publication as a clearly labeled, in-house workflow. It makes publisher oversight of outside content vendors a central issue.
First-order effects
Sports Illustrated, the LA Times, the Miami Herald, and other named outlets face immediate scrutiny over the provenance, authorship, and editorial review of content supplied by AdVon.
AdVon’s business model is exposed to reputational and commercial risk as clients assess whether its AI-generated work and author identities met their editorial standards.
Second-order effects
Publishers using third-party content suppliers are likely to tighten vendor due diligence, including checks on bylines, sourcing, disclosure, and responsibility for corrections.
The findings raise the cost of deploying low-cost AI content at scale: apparent production savings can be offset by review, remediation, and brand-trust costs—especially after earlier reports of AI content resembling competitors’ work raised plagiarism concerns at CNET.
Third-order effects
If repeated across publishers, the key competitive divide may shift from access to generative tools to the ability to verify provenance and maintain credible editorial accountability.
The episode reinforces a broader structural tension in digital publishing: scalable synthetic supply can expand inventory quickly, but undisclosed authorship can weaken the trust that differentiates established outlets from low-oversight content networks.
The trend: News publishers’ AI-content commercialization is moving from isolated experimentation toward a governance test over disclosure, vendor controls, and editorial accountability.
Meet AdVon, the AI-Powered Content Monster Infecting the Media Industry — https://futurism.com/... “Basically, AdVon engages in what Google calls “site reputation abuse”: it strikes deals with publishers in which it provides huge numbers of extremely low-quality product review…
“We found the company's phony authors and their work everywhere from celebrity gossip outlets like Hollywood Life and Us Weekly to venerable newspapers like the Los Angeles Times.” https://futurism.com/...
The AdVon scandal follows a long trend of news companies lacking innovation and creating unusable websites, putting clicks and bad ads over readability and usability.
One of my favorite parts of @mags_h11's AdVon story: When AdVon CEO Ben Faw tried to intimidate us into backing down, by stressing his business connections to our owners, our CEO, and the chairman of Recurrent's board. https://futurism.com/... [image]
A @futurism investigation into AdVon, the company behind AI content at SI & Gannett papers, exposes how many publishers cannot be trusted to safeguard the integrity of news This why journalists are fighting to protect their readers from the dangers of AI https://futurism.com/...
Earlier in our reporting, AdVon denied using AI to generate editorial content. But according to insiders we spoke to, this wasn't true — and in fact, AdVon materials we obtained revealed that the company has its own designated AI text generator. That AI has a name: MEL.
“We found the company's phony authors and their work everywhere from celebrity gossip outlets like Hollywood Life and Us Weekly to venerable newspapers like the Los Angeles Times...which also told us that it had broken off its relationship with AdVon” https://futurism.com/...
any time a media company says they're investing in AI as a core pillar of their content strategy, they should have to explain how it's different than this https://futurism.com/...
We found AdVon's fake authors at the LA Times, Us Weekly, and HollywoodLife, to name a few. AdVon's fake author network was particularly extensive at the McClatchy media network, where we found at least 14 fake authors at more than 20 of its papers, including the Miami Herald.
futurism's reporting on AI-generated content at scale has been great and eye-opening. it turns out pubs like the LA Times and Miami Herald have been using it, and say they weren't told the stories were written by AI. wild stuff!! https://futurism.com/...
Today, on Futurism, a massive exposé everyone in media should be paying attention to: The story behind AdVon, the machine behind the fentanyl-like poisoning of AI-generated content in major publishers' work. https://futurism.com/...
Truly revolting how AI is allowed to corrupt journalism, courtesy of owners looking to squeeze more blood from the stone. incredible reporting here on the use of tech to create fake writers with fake bylines & head shots. https://futurism.com/...
“We found the company's phony authors and their work everywhere from celebrity gossip outlets like Hollywood Life and Us Weekly to venerable newspapers like the Los Angeles Times.” https://futurism.com/...
I kept digging into that AI company behind Sports Illustrated's fake writers. Turns out it's created tons more fake writers across the web, sometimes for surprisingly huge media clients. And then things get even wilder... For @futurism // https://futurism.com/... [image]