The Northeast Times website is again at the center of questions about AI bots running local news sites, after its bylines and policies changed repeatedly over two days. Billy Penn reported that former reporter Steven Bassin found dozens of recent centraljersey.com stories carrying his name, though he said he had not written them.
The report traced the sites to a complicated split between newspaper ownership and online domains. Donnelly Media said it sold several domains and their existing content to Paradise Media around 2023 and 2024, expecting archived work to remain while the group built separate websites for its print publications.
AI Bots Running Under Familiar Newspaper Names
Billy Penn found websites using the names and visual identities of regional papers, including The Northeast Times, Lower Bucks Times and South Philly Review. The outlet reported copied language, questionable photographs and stories attributed to reporters who said they had not produced them.
Those developments came as Donnelly Media said its own publications had moved to different web addresses. General manager Brandon Chamberlain said the company did not own the domains in question and identified Paradise Media as their owner. He said reporters’ concerns had been handled individually, with stories generally removed after the company contacted Paradise Media.
Chamberlain also said the parties could do more to distinguish their sites. Donnelly Media told Billy Penn it had not lost sales. The report noted that some Paradise Media websites still named Donnelly Media as owner and directed readers toward its print editions as of Nov. 9.
What Reporters Say About AI Bots Running Newsrooms
Alex Mahadevan, who specializes in AI and policy at the Poynter Institute, told Billy Penn that newsroom uses of AI raise questions about transparency and accountability. He said generated text can imitate the shape of writing without doing the reporting behind it, and warned against automating a news site.
Bassin said the continuing use of his byline upset him and worried him. He told Billy Penn that more than 30 articles published from Nov. 3 to Nov. 9 carried his name, though he said he had not written them. Some, he said, appeared on betting sites outside his reporting area.
Andrew Martins, another journalist whose name appeared on a story he said he did not write, criticized coverage that did not serve the communities named by the sites. He described local news as a record of what happened in those communities.
Ownership Questions Remain
Paradise Media did not respond to Billy Penn’s requests for comment, according to the report. Chamberlain said the company had been contacting Paradise when current and former reporters raised concerns, while acknowledging that readers could be confused by the overlap in branding.
Separately, Donnelly Media’s publications now use sites such as patimes.media and centraljersey.media, Chamberlain said. The company’s account distinguishes those outlets from the domains it said it sold. Readers encountering the older names may therefore see material on sites with different owners and editorial arrangements.
The next concrete step described in the report is case-by-case contact: Chamberlain said Donnelly Media reaches out to Paradise Media when a reporter raises a concern. For Bassin, the byline issue remained unresolved when Billy Penn published, and Paradise Media had not replied to the outlet.
Questions about online bylines sit alongside broader reporting on how organizations handle responsibility and trust, including coverage of executive safety culture. The article also connects to reporting on how a company has addressed workforce decisions and how firms are directing resources toward AI.
Billy Penn’s reporting details the interviews, site changes and examples behind the dispute.
