ShareFacebookX (formerly Twitter)TranscriptAnd now, to the roads, rates, and rubbish, and News Corp’s noble commitment to apply the blowtorch to Victoria’s troublesome local councils:Community groups call to scrap Moonee Valley’s purple glass recycling bins- Herald Sun Leader, North West, 15 Sep 2026Moonee Valley’s ratepayers, it seems, have had it up to here with those purple bins:Local advocacy groups are calling to overhaul Moonee Valley’s purple glass bins, citing added costs, space constraints and infrequent collection schedules. - Herald Sun Leader, North West, 15 Sep 2026A ripping local yarn.But for one little problem, which Moonee Valley’s mayor helpfully explained:Moonee Valley doesn’t have purple bins …- Text Message, Rose Iser, Moonee Valley Mayor, 16 Sep 2026Oh dear, the bins were but a proposal, not a reality. Though the paper wasn’t done with Moonee Valley yet:Moonee Valley City Council is spending ratepayer money defending flood claims instead of fixing the drains that caused the flooding in the first place, a resident has alleged.- Herald Sun Leader, North, 15 Sep 2026That local resident is Rae Berge whose plight, sandbagging her home against overflowing stormwater, was written up last year by The Age, and now the Hun was on the case, explaining:During the meeting, Rae Berge questioned whether the council and its lawyers were complying with legal requirements to keep litigation costs reasonable and proportionate.“Every dollar spent defending these claims is a dollar not spent fixing the drainage failures causing them,” Ms Berge said.- Herald Sun Leader, North, 15 Sep 2026All power to Rae Berge, except, when I called her last week to ask her about this fiery meeting, she explained she was never there:I was in my green-and-yellow rubber gloves and cleaning my bathroom.- Phone, Rae Berge, 17 Sep 2026In fact, Rae had sent in her questions ahead of the meeting.News Corp’s council report also gave us this rather intriguing breadcrumb:Deputy Mayor Phil Burn and councillor John Barnes both briefly exited the chamber during the public question session. - Herald Sun Leader, North, 15 Sep 2026But didn’t ever actually get to the bottom of why they left, so we did, the deputy mayor revealing:Ummm … I just went to the dunny, and I think John went after me. - Text Message, Phil Burn, Moonee Valley Deputy Mayor, 17 Sep 2026Bob Woodward, eat your heart out.So, how have standards fallen so low?Can you guess?News Corp has turned, of course, to artificial intelligence, entrusting it to read council papers and turn out accurate, balanced, and fair copy, which it seems is going just as well as its illustrations which feature a protester missing his head, a tsunami rearing, for no obvious reason, over a local gym, and not-inconsistent-at-all depictions of Hepburn’s charming deputy mayor Shirley Cornish.These and other Herald Sun contributions carrying the all-important rider.The local reporting team at the Herald Sun were informed last Tuesday of the rollout of these stories as part of a 12 to 18-month AI experiment and were horrified, one told us:This project treats both journalists and readers with contempt. If a human reporter began churning out the quality of these so-called stories … they would lose their job … this project sends the message that we actually don't care. - Text Message, Herald Sun Staffer, 17 Sep 2026A spokesperson for News Corp said it is piloting AI in communities where news coverage has declined, that all of its AI content is reviewed by a human before publication and:… there will be no impact on existing roles … we remain committed to maintaining the highest standards for everything we publish and any errors brought to our attention will be clarified or corrected.- Email, News Corp Australia Spokesperson, 18 Sep 2026To the company’s credit, these and other errors have indeed been corrected.News is not alone in experimenting with AI, but it has crossed a Rubicon others have not, outsourcing holus-bolus to a regurgitation machine the work of a council reporter.What a shocker.Because until a computer can listen to an aggrieved ratepayer, doorstop a developer, and document the evasions of an alderman, this experiment risks putting a bomb under what little trust people still feel in their local paper.News Corp does away with council reporters and replaces them with AI. The results? As you might expect.Read a statement from a spokesman for News Corp here. Mon 21 Sep 2026 at 8:45pmMon 21 Sep 2026 at 8:45pmMon 21 Sep 2026 at 8:45pmShareFacebookX (formerly Twitter) Appears In Four Corners impartial?; AI Leader; Missing Mitch3itemsIn this episode1 of 3Ep 33 - Four Corners impartial?2 of 3PlayingEp 33 - AI Leader3 of 3Ep 33 - Missing MitchBack to top