Anonymous AI news site Acutus publishes 94 articles with fake reporters — 97% are AI-generated with no human journalists

Acutus launched December 29, 2025 as an anonymously-run news site claiming to offer 'expert-sourced journalism.' It has published 94 articles on AI policy, Senate races, pharmacy reform, and other topics. Analysis reveals 69% are fully AI-generated and 28% partially AI-generated — only 3 articles appear human-written. The site sent an interview request to advocacy group Encode from a fake reporter named 'Michael Chen' who does not exist.

The site's backend code shows it uses an automated pipeline: humans input 'AI Background Context' and 'Question Prompts,' then click 'Generate Story Draft.' AI then extracts quotes from research notes, performs grammar checks, and runs multi-pass editorial reviews scoring articles on AP style compliance, quote accuracy, and source verification. Most of this entire review process completes in under 44 seconds, with the AI system flagging 42 of 94 stories as 'needs_revision' — but they were published anyway.

For readers and professionals: this demonstrates a scalable method to flood the internet with seemingly credible but AI-generated news designed to influence policy. The site's wire-service setup and Creative Commons licensing enable mass syndication across other publishers. The fake 'Michael Chen' interview request shows these AI articles actively solicit quotes from real people, lending false credibility to otherwise fully machine-generated reporting.