The Real Story – A Column
A podcast posted yesterday by Senator Janeen Sollman, in which she was featured, would be so funny and worthy of a Christopher Guest Movie like “Best Of Show” or “A Mighty Wind” if Senate Bill 1586 weren’t such a destructive and financially compromised proposal. One that is being pushed by land owners and Big Energy, and will expand Hillsboro’s land mass by 11% and set the future of our valley on edge forever. All with no community voice. Hubbell Communications—a PR firm with offices in Portland and Seattle—claims they are “Building Better Communities.” But their latest production, a slick, almost certainly AI-generated podcast hosted by synthetic versions of owners Zach Hyder and Gina Maffei, suggests they are actually in the business of building better delusions. It is inconceivable that this Podcast is not AI- I tried this technology a year or two ago by feeding it a script, and the voices were identical and the pacing the same. While I am not a betting man, if I were, I would put money down that this is NotebookLM, and I am happy to correct and retract if someone can prove me wrong. Either way, real or AI, Zach and Gina made this podcast episode.
The podcast is a masterclass in corporate “astroturfing.” While the AI personas mock hundreds of Washington County community members for meeting in a “musty church,” they fail to mention that the church meeting was the only place where actual, unscripted democracy was happening. In fact, the “Musty...
Far-right commentator Candace Owens posted a new round of conspiracy claims on X in the past 24 hours, accusing Israel of orchestrating “false flags,” invoking Mossad in sweeping allegations, and ...