The Ashland Daily Tidings — established as a newspaper in 1876 — ceased operations in 2021 (its parent company, Rosebud Media, held on until 2023), but if you were a local reader, you may not have known. Almost as soon as it closed, a website for the Tidings reemerged, supposedly boasting a team of eight reporters who cranked out densely reported stories every few days. The reality was that none of the people allegedly working for the Ashland Daily Tidings existed, or at least were who they claimed to be. The bylines listed on Daily Tidings articles were put there by scammers using artificial intelligence, and in some cases stolen identities, to dupe local readers.