Major PR Firm Accused of Large-Scale Plagiarism via Fake News Site National Today

On Tuesday evening, Futurism published an original interview with a researcher who had coauthored a study on the effects of AI on users’ cognition. Within hours, National Today—a news site linked to a major PR firm—published an article that was an obvious reworded version of Futurism’s story. The piece included a direct quote from the interview Futurism had conducted but omitted any credit to Futurism or a link to the original article. Instead, National Today presented the reporting as its own, engaging in clear plagiarism.

This incident is not isolated. Last week, National Today published a story about Medvi, a controversial GLP-1 marketer, which replicated a quote Futurism had obtained from an expert. The site again failed to acknowledge Futurism or link to its reporting. Prior to that, National Today duplicated a Futurism blog post about a realtor who accidentally posted an AI-generated image of a demon crawling out of a mirror—without crediting Futurism.

National Today’s plagiarism extends beyond Futurism. The site has been found repurposing original reporting from top newspapers and local newsrooms nationwide, using it to flood the internet with what appear to be AI-generated articles. These pieces often contain bizarre errors and hallucinations. The scale of the operation is staggering: Futurism attempted to count the number of articles National Today published in a single day but stopped after reaching 300.

The site’s theft is unmistakable. In one article about writer and actress Lena Dunham, National Today plagiarized direct quotes from three separate interviews Dunham gave to The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Guardian—without attributing any of them.

In another egregious example, National Today stole the work of Mellie Valencia, a reporter at the East Texas broadcaster KTRE. Valencia had reported a heartbreaking story about a local mother whose 10-year-old daughter died from a rare brain tumor in March. Despite the sensitive nature of the reporting, National Today published a plagiarized copy.

“This is very upsetting to see,” Valencia told Futurism. “A lot of legwork went into the story, and real human connections were made with the family—and to see it pulled and replicated… is sad.”

“My hope is that since KTRE is one of the only stations covering this area, people will head to our website instead of other websites to get the most up-to-date information.”

Others have also taken notice of National Today’s plagiarism. During the investigation, Futurism discovered that earlier this week,