The Texas Tribune is still stalling. The article boosting con man David Flash as a real journalist still appears on their website, weeks after they have been contacted by our editorial team, as well as others. The author, Carlos Nogueras Ramos, has refused to reply to any requests for corrections to his horrific article.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/11/west-texas-publisher-david-flash-jeff-davis-county-arrest
The Texas Tribune appears to be all in on the AI hype. They have received multiple grants from The American Journalism Project which is in turn funded by OpenAI, Facebook Journalism Project, Google News Initiative, and others. Those three companies have so much money invested in generative AI that it’s no wonder they are funding news outlets and praying for favorable coverage.
It’s easy to wonder if Carlos Nogueras Ramos even exists, since his reporting at the link above was almost certainly generated by AI and not written by a person. His bio claims he used to report on politics in Philly. Perhaps he should have stayed there. Our editorial team contacted Ramos after we published the previous story about his terrible reporting on David Flash. Minutes later we got hits from Odessa on the site coming from an email link on an Android phone, and it seems safe to assume it was him. The story had just been published moments before and no one else was aware of it yet. Immediately after the hit from Odessa, we got hits from around Texas going directly to the story. One can’t help but wonder if Carlos emailed the link to everyone at the Tribune so they could all laugh again about the hit job they published on Jeff Davis County, passing messages about how they will never correct the story.
Flash uses AI to generate his ‘stories’ which are almost all stolen from some other source. And he uses Facebook to pump his lies all over the country with sponsored posts. So Flash is an example of someone using AI and FB, supposedly for journalism. Ramos writes “As traditional newsrooms, especially in rural parts of the U.S., shrink or close, journalists and others have tried to crack the code of providing high-quality information with less overhead. Few are successful.” Did Ramos look at Flash’s journalism before writing his story? Did he even write the story? With so much investment from AI companies it would make sense that The Texas Tribune is also using AI to generate shit journalism like this ridiculous story Carlos generated. And we have to wonder if Ramos saw a chance to suck up to his AI investors as an AI booster. His twitter handle has the word ‘vibe’ in it, so that tells you something.
The Texas Tribune has been testing the waters with AI for some time. Hopefully they will finally understand after this sad episode in their long history that they are only going to make fools of themselves if they continue down this path. They have already done 2 separate polls trying to determine if they will get away with this. And of course they never publish the results of those polls, at least as far as this reporter can tell.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/14/2025-texas-tribune-AI-survey
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/07/16/AI-texas-tribune-survey
And they have been reporting a lot on AI since getting all that money from the AI companies. Although, many of the stories listed on the AI category page don’t seem to be about AI. Perhaps that page was also generated by AI and is full of slop.
https://www.texastribune.org/topics/artificial-intelligence
And they have been trying to use chat bots unsuccessfully as well. Why a formerly trusted news outlet would think chat bots are good for their business is something to wonder about. Perhaps all that AI investment money has something to do with it?
Our editorial team did contact Darla Cameron at The Texas Tribune because her bio says “She guides product development and management, engineering and design, working closely across the organization to deliver the Tribune’s journalism in fresh and innovative ways that build trust with more Texans.” She emailed us back, claiming she had contacted the editor and author of the story and said they will be in touch. Crickets.
What is going on Darla? Your outlet’s shit journalism is still posted. The obvious error that Marfa is 55 miles south of Fort Davis is still up there. Pull up Google Maps, you will see it’s only 20 miles. Perhaps Darla has a case of AI Chat Bot Psychosis. Maybe ChatGPT has been telling her the Texas Tribune is the greatest and everyone is just out to get them. The continued stalling by The Texas Tribune is a warning for what the future of AdTech Journalism will bring. AI Slop that publishers refuse to correct.
Seems like everything started about 2 years ago:
