The Nieman Lab recently published a look at Good Daily, a one-man operation flooding inboxes across 355 U.S. towns with AI-generated newsletters. On the surface, they appear to be hometown roundups. Scratch deeper and you’ll find the same testimonials recycled in Queen Creek, Arkansas, Fort Collins, Colorado, and Denton, Texas—word for word. Readers think they’re getting “local,” but the stories come secondhand from legacy outlets, stripped down and repackaged by bots.
Our model at Mercury Local is the opposite. We don’t pretend presence; we put people in the room. And if we use AI, it’s in the background—to process records and surface details—never to impersonate reporting.
Elections First, Always Local
Take our Charlotte Mercury election coverage. Mecklenburg County ranked 97th out of 100 counties in North Carolina for 2024 primary turnout—just 18.7 percent of registered voters cast a ballot. That isn’t a statistic you can scrape. It’s a civic crisis that demands context, analysis, and accountability.
Our reporters arrived, pulling certified data, interviewing candidates, and pressing strategists, all while explaining how primaries—with low turnout—allow a sliver of voters to shape policy for everyone. AI lent a hand in the grunt work, scanning thousands of pages of minutes and budgets. But connecting those numbers to “permanent minority rule”? That’s judgment only a human can make.
Good Daily, by contrast, claims to be “helping local outlets” by summarizing their work. In practice, the Nieman Lab found their referrals barely register. One Georgia newsroom reported only four engaged sessions from a Good Daily spinoff across ninety days. That’s not amplification; it’s siphoning.
How We Use AI (and How We Don’t)
Good Daily runs on full automation: agents scour, summarize, format, and publish. No bylines, no disclosure, no transparency. The same retiree testimonial appears in dozens of towns, and nonprofits “winning” its advertising donations sometimes don’t even know the contest existed.
Mercury Local uses AI differently. We rely on it to transcribe city council debates, flag anomalies in budgets, and archive public records. It’s infrastructure—like a notepad or an audio recorder—not a substitute for reporting. Our output is grounded in lived presence: sitting through zoning hearings, chasing down interviews, and explaining why turnout numbers matter.
Transparency and Trust
The divide is also cultural. Good Daily hides behind multiple domains with no newsroom addresses and no clear disclosure of automation. Readers have no idea who is producing their “news.”
Mercury Local is open by design. Every piece carries a byline, a Creative Commons license, and citations. Our privacy pledge is simple: no trackers, no list-buying, no hidden data trades. If you want to know who’s behind the story, you don’t need to hunt—we’re right here.
Advertising That Matches the Mission
Good Daily’s revenue comes from a cocktail of reader donations, national ad buys, and small-dollar local spots. Morning Brew and Hims pulled out after realizing their brands were attached to AI newsletters. Meanwhile, its nonprofit “give back” program promises ten percent of profits—though often there are no profits to give.
Mercury Local’s business model is rooted in the community itself. We work with local businesses through first-party relationships—utilizing profile pages, storytelling posts, and contextual ads that readers engage with. It’s not filler between headlines; it’s part of the civic fabric.
About the Author
Peter Cellino
This piece was written while nursing a mug of over-steeped coffee that tasted like zoning maps smell. You can find me on Bluesky at @pc51.bsky.social and keep tabs on our work across Charlotte, Ballantyne, and Farmington via the Mercury Local blog.
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This article, “Showing Up vs. Spinning Out: Mercury Local and the Good Daily Divide,” by Peter Cellino is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0.
“Showing Up vs. Spinning Out: Mercury Local and the Good Daily Divide”
by Peter Cellino, Mercury Local (CC BY-ND 4.0)