Weekend Dispatch #15

Hello, and welcome to the Weekend Dispatch — your guide to life on the frontier.

Inside: Russians, roulette and an ice-cream truck.

Onwards…

It’s been a busy week at HQ, with Dispatch's rumbling of fake AI “journalist” Margaux Blanchard still ricocheting across the world.

The story has been picked up by the Guardian, the New York Post and, in rather entertaining style, on Australian state TV.

I was also interviewed about it on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show. You can listen to the full episode here — or a choice clip here.

Everyone seems to want to know the same thing: who is Margaux Blanchard, and why was she planting fake stories in respectable publications? Was it for money? Or simply the thrill of duping editors?

I’ve spent the week trying to get an answer. At one point, “Margaux” agreed to talk and even sent me a Zoom link — before failing to turn up to the meeting. I’ll keep trying.

To be honest, though, I don’t think Blanchard’s real identity matters. What matters is why she succeeded.

As I told the BBC, it’s no coincidence that AI-written slop is seeping into overstretched legacy outlets, where already depleted workforces are being replaced by AI products. And nor is it a coincidence that it was Dispatch that raised the alarm. You simply can’t fake the kind of human-led reporting we’re committed to.

As for Dispatch, will anything change post-Blanchard?

Not a bit. Next week we’ll bring you two new human-centred articles: one about obsessive fandom, the other about a besieged community.

For now, let’s crack on with the newsletter. And if you spot any typos or mistakes, rest assured: they were made by a human.

Kudos to Steve Dinneen at City AM, who this week managed to track down the person behind another fake AI freelancer in Nigeria. “I’m not a scammer,” the writer told him. “I’m just doing what I have to to survive.”

Elsewhere in scamming news this week, the South African government has warned of fake job ads luring young women to Russian weapons factories in Tatarstan.

It’s the first we’ve heard of this particular ruse, but not a huge surprise. One of the most disturbing pieces Dispatch has published was by Sara Smythe — a young South African who fell for a similar scam and was kidnapped in Thailand.

You can read her account here.

If you’re after one last dose of summer travel, don’t miss Jack Burke’s deliciously barbed report from Monaco — home to Mareterra, the most expensive neighbourhood in the world.

Sadly, Dispatch’s expense account couldn’t stretch to funding a night of roulette with the world’s worst people at the Casino de Monte-Carlo. But we’re working on it.

Exciting news from Scotland, where residents of the Shetland Isles are lobbying for Shaetlan — their local dialect — to be given official recognition by the government.

Still in its infancy, the campaign could do worse than study the revival of Gaelic in... Nova Scotia.

Emily Latimer reported on the language’s renaissance in one of Dispatch’s first pieces.

“Traffic lights aren’t working, the streetlights aren’t working, the drainage pumps aren’t working, and City Hall is not working”

That was the verdict of one New Orleanian this week, as the city marked the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Despite endless promises of regeneration, residents are fed up with crumbling infrastructure — and with their mayor, LaToya Cantrell, who was recently indicted on charges of using public funds to bankroll a romance with her bodyguard.

Plenty has been written about the city’s pain over the past two decades. But nothing captures its human underbelly quite like music legend Jon Cleary’s recent piece.

You can read it here.

Sports latest:

Last weekend: the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society hosted its first-ever bird call contest.

This weekend: the World Toe Wrestling Championship takes place in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

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