A website called The Editorial published a 1,900-word article claiming a media company had secretly bought and shut down 47 weekly newspapers across Alabama, replacing local staff with artificial intelligence. The story, which spread among journalists on social media before being debunked, contained fabricated advertiser quotes and falsely named real newspapers that were still operating as usual. The Editorial removed the article citing ‘fact-verification concerns’ after a journalism researcher publicly identified it as fabricated; the same site had previously published similar hoax stories about other American newspapers.