Elon Musk wasn’t wrong when he pointed out that, when it comes to media, the internet powers the little guy over the big guy. But neither he nor anyone else could foresee the complications to follow when AI gets involved in news. Here’s one:

Juno News is an independent online media outlet in Canada, founded by journalists in 2025. It has grown rapidly, claiming to reach 10 million per month.

One recent effort to reach the Juno audience turned out to be bits n’ bytes — hiding a shadowy figure.

At Juno, Melanie Bennet reports, “An AI fraudster infiltrated legacy media organizations across Canada. He tried to infiltrate Juno, too, but we sniffed him out the second we saw his sketchy profile and told him to beat it”:

Daniel Robson, an AI profile run by God-knows-who, successfully infiltrated multiple newsrooms across Canada, including the Ottawa Citizen and Policy Options, all of whom remained completely oblivious to the “journalist’s” real identity.

It wasn’t until Türkiye Today, a Turkish news organization, was contacted by Robson, noticed he was clearly AI, and wrote an article about his being published in outlets across Canada that Canadian legacy media got the memo and started frantically deleting his articles.

Juno News was also contacted by Robson last year regarding possible writing opportunities, but unlike the “trusted” news orgs that get bailouts and government funding every year, we actually did our homework on the guy, and we didn’t let him submit a single article…

“‘Phantom’ columnist duped Canadian media with AI-generated identity,” October 1, 2026

Türkiye Today found that “Daniel Robson”’s photo is 97% likely to be AI gen. Other claims did not check out. He refused them a voice interview, claiming a dental condition. So TT didn’t bite; in fact, their article helped warn others.

We still don’t know who or what is behind the “cybercrime specialist” Daniel Robson AI persona. And it’s sobering that, as Juno sums up, “A polished pitch, plausible biography, and professional-looking photograph were apparently enough to create the illusion of credibility.”

A bit of background might be helpful here

Juno’s “About” page announces, “We are entirely 100% funded by our audience and our ad reads, and do not take any grants or bailout money from the government.”

By contrast, since 2018, most Canadian media have been funded partly or wholly by government. Bluntly, if we assume that he who pays the piper calls the tune, they are state media. There are a number of feisty indies like Juno out there though. But they will likely be the first to suffer from current government efforts to get control of the news stream. The others may not fight.

Juno’s hard-to-conceal glee at being a news outlet that spotted the scam is easier to understand if we know that.

Overall, the problem of AI slop will certainly be complicated by government subsidy of legacy media, which removes the need for vigilance. That could be coming to an administration near you.