Anyone who knows me knows that the unfiltered version of this article would naturally contain approximately 6,000 F-bombs. I am going to refrain in this instance. The topic is too important, the stakes are too real, and I want every reader, creator, business owner, publicist, journalist and reader to be able to share this message widely.
So, let’s get into it, friends.
When we began building Browardist® and THE WEEKLY 954® from scratch in late 2024, one of our first priorities was protecting the names.
We thought they were clever. We believed they had potential. And we knew enough about business to recognize that, if we created something successful, someone might eventually try to steal it.
So, we pursued trademark protection for Browardist® and THE WEEKLY 954®. At the time, we were primarily concerned about someone taking our names or misrepresenting our brands.
We did not imagine that, within our first year, we would be dealing with plagiarism, copyright infringement, attempts at brand confusion, trademark dilution, and content piracy several times a week.
Yet here we are, people.
A specific Florida “news operation” has repeatedly taken Browardist®’s original work without our permission. In certain instances, our reporting has seemingly been copied nearly verbatim. In others, our unique reporting appears to have been fed into artificial intelligence, reassembled into sloppy content and presented as original work. Photographs supplied to us with permission have also been taken, cropped or screenshotted and reposted without proper attribution.
This hurts an entire creative community.
It hurts the photographers and videographers who trust me to publish their work with the credit they deserve. It hurts the businesses and people who shared their stories with us, only to see those stories mangled into AI-generated nonsense. It hurts Browardist®, a very small business (that reaaaaaallly wants to commission local writers and other creatives to help us, already!) created to spotlight compelling people, places and ideas while offering an alternative to the doomscrolling machine.
And, yes, it hurts me.
I am a veteran of this industry and, yes, I’ve referred to myself as a “grumpy old man” in this space, though I am only 40 years-old (which is not old and when people can be in their absolute prime, for the record, thank you very much!). I have worked for and alongside some of the largest media organizations on Earth. Proper sourcing is not some optional courtesy to me. It is absolutely foundational and any legitimate media entity understands that.
Those of us doing this work also understand that overlapping coverage is inevitable. Multiple outlets receive the same press release and several reporters attend the same opening. We can sometimes publish similar announcements within hours of one another and think, “Well, we all told roughly the same story today.” That happens.
But real storytellers still contribute something original and a little of their own pizzazz. They conduct an interview, seek additional context, verify a detail, find a local angle or explain why the story matters to their audience. They do... wait for it... the work.
The lazier thieves defend their behavior by declaring that information is “in the public sphere” once another creator publishes it. Duh, that is wrong. A creator’s original expression does not become a Golden Corral buffet (sorry, Golden Corral) merely because it appears online. Copyrighted writing and photography remain protected, and reporting used as the foundation for another outlet’s story should be explicitly credited after permission is obtained.
For the record, Browardist® welcomes proper attribution by entities that aren’t jerks. We are genuinely happy when our reporting helps a worthy story travel farther.
During our first 11 months, we have credited reporting from the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Miami New Times, CBS Miami, Local 10, NBC 6, the Miami Herald and many others. When another journalist uncovers an original element or breaks a story, that labor deserves recognition. It takes seconds to write “according to” and link to the original reporting.
What makes this especially maddening is that Browardist® was created to elevate and amplify other creators. I have met, interviewed and promoted dozens upon dozens of local creators. Their talent has inspired me, and I have tried to shine a light on what they are building. I love our interviews – they are among my favorites.
Meanwhile, dozens of creators have privately and unprompted told me that prominent local accounts have stolen their work, mimicked their signature styles or rushed to recreate their ideas after they were published.
Some imitation can be dismissed as flattery. Some conduct crosses a legal line.
Example: THE WEEKLY 954®. We launched our newsletter in October 2025 using Beehiiv, which was then relatively obscure among local creators. It arrives every Monday at 9:54 a.m. We use “This Week in Broward County,” display an explicit date range (kind of a unique style, too) and direct readers to browardist.com/subscribe.
Then another local creator launched a Monday newsletter on Beehiiv. It arrived at 9:50 a.m. It used “This Week in Broward County,” followed the same date format and relied on a nearly identical subscription structure.
Coincidence... inspiration... flattery? Before Browardist® even launched, I contacted this person, introduced myself and suggested that we find ways to coexist and work cohesively. I’ll come out and say it... I admired them. I also hoped to profile them and offer a forum where they could tell their own story, as I have done for many creators.
Well, I received no response. On its own, that silence is fine as journalism does not require everyone to accept an interview. But combine the newsletter similarities with the stories other creators have proactively shared with me about copied ideas, stolen work and mimicked formats, and the rosy public image begins looking very different.
In that case, I am flattered. I am also far from amused and am no longer a fan. Oh well.
Then there is the conduct that I believe moves beyond imitation. And that is... feeding someone else’s original reporting into AI without attribution, zooming in on a photographer’s image to remove identifying information, taking screenshots without credit and claiming the resulting content as your own.
Beginning as early as March 2026, one specific entity has regularly taken Browardist®’s work. A side-by-side comparison, complete with date and time stamps, leaves no question that our work was improperly copied. Some of our most successful reporting began with information supplied directly to us, original interviews or details developed through our own labor and long-standing connections. Days or even weeks later, altered versions appeared elsewhere and reached a substantially larger audience. This larger audience has become such in part because they rip off work of their industry counterparts without putting in the work that the original creators did.
The resulting posts sometimes included hilarious factual errors seemingly introduced during the AI churn. The original reporting was not cited, and the photographs were not properly credited, much less used in a permissible manner.
And because the underlying stories were good, the recycled versions often went viral again. So, here is the complicated reality... businesses love publicity. If an account with a large following offers to share their story, many business owners will accept. Duh. I understand that as expanded exposure may genuinely help them. There is satisfaction in watching a deserving business, person or idea gain a wider audience.
But when another publisher obtains that attention by taking our original work, the journalists, photographers and small businesses (ahem, us) responsible for producing it suffer. The copier collects the clicks—and profits—while someone else absorbs the expense, time and stress.
Since March, this situation has affected my health, concentration and work.
Browardist® is absolutely thriving. We are equipped to remain active in this community for years. But we are still a mom-and-pop business. And for the record, I am Papa Browardist® and my wife Lisa is Mama Browardist®. We are raising a chunky Browardist® baby that is barely 10 months old and is screaming cries of endearment at us ‘round the clock.
Now, countless hours that should be spent covering Broward County have been redirected toward documenting this ongoing infringement of our original work, consulting professionals and defending our work. Before launching Browardist®, I already received upward of 1,100 emails a day across my local, regional, national and international contacts. That number has grown as Browardist® has expanded.
The added stress has stripped away time I need to meet deadlines and answer people who trusted me with their stories. I have requested extensions. I have left emails unanswered. I have left people hanging.
That is not who I am, I am sorry but... now you know why.
This is also not a broad “AI is taking over the world” rant. I use AI-assisted technology myself and you probably do, too. Gemini sometimes helps me work through emails. Grammarly helps prevent me from sounding like a ding-dong, especially now that I am frequently my own editor, which is absolutely horrifying (shoutout to all my editors that have made me sound good through the years!). Rev helps transcribe select interviews, including for publications that have encouraged its use.
The problem is not the mere existence of a tool. The problem is the human using any tool to disguise theft, erase attribution and manufacture the appearance of original reporting.
I will not stand for this.
Browardist® launched with a promise to tell additional stories across Broward County and nearby destinations while creating an ecosystem that reduces doomscrolling. Never in my absolutely wildest imagination did I expect us to spend our first year confronting people who take our work, copy it without permission, and use it to generate even more disposable content with little to no modification or authorship credit.
But here we are.
And, alert, Browardist® also appears to be far from the only victim. Based on material I have reviewed, other hardworking journalists, photographers and creative organizations across the entire state of Florida have blatantly had their work used in similar improper ways. I can endure someone disrespecting my work. What I cannot accept is watching an industry already under extraordinary pressure get violated by people who treat creativity as a deep well of free material.
Being a journalist in 2026 is difficult enough, y’all. At Browardist®’s January launch event at The Break House in Deerfield Beach, I spoke about public distrust of the “big, bad, heinous media.” Plenty of people have already made up their minds about journalists.
Yet so many of my media friends simply want to spotlight a truly unknown restaurant that’s concocting something spectacular, document an incredible travel memory or share a meaningful story that has nothing to do with politics. They do not deserve to have their work stolen, repackaged and stripped of its humanity by someone chasing clout.
With this, I am standing up for this industry. I have worked in this world for decades. I have evolved alongside it (though, for the love of God, don’t count on me making a TikTok anytime soon), and I believe I have an obligation to defend established colleagues and the next generation of creators. I am fortunate to have accumulated the knowledge and resources to fight.
Too many creators have heard some variation of, “Yes, it may be illegal but take it as flattery.”
No.
My immediate objective is simple, my friends. I want the individual taking my material to stop. This person has been now warned multiple times. After the first warning, I even offered to meet for coffee and discuss how we could amicably coexist. Anyone who knows me knows I love grabbing coffee, sharing a cocktail (or several) and talking candidly with journalists, publicists and fellow creators. That meeting never happened.
Browardist® has tried to resolve things amicably. But at this point, we will do everything to enforce our intellectual property rights and seek all associated remedies to stop this type of behavior. Myself and others in the industry have worked too hard and for too long to allow this type of conduct to continue. Our legal team will be sending immediate notices to those who continue to engage in this type of behavior. And if they still refuse to comply, Browardist® is prepared to take formal legal action.
I hope each recipient complies, ends the conduct described in the letter and allows all of us to move forward telling original stories. Regardless of what happens next, I also intend to share what I learn about fighting plagiarism and infringement with creators facing similar situations locally, regionally or nationally.
This cannot stand. I will not stand for it. And, as always, I am here for you as best I can.
This issue extends far beyond journalism. Imagine being a new comedian, chef, musician, small-business owner, filmmaker or technology entrepreneur. You finally create something successful, only to watch a better-funded or better-followed entity take your joke, recipe, song, concept or invention and claim it without credit.
That taste of success quickly turns bitter, right? Browardist® may be in its infancy, but I am not new to this arena. I am willing to advocate for creators who lack the audience, legal knowledge or resources to defend themselves.
As one of my favorite humans and longtime colleagues, Jasen, often says: “I don’t need a ticker-tape parade.” He may not know how deeply that phrase has stuck with me.
I do not need a parade. I do need support. We need your support. I could launch a crowdfunding campaign called “Stand With Browardist®,” but that is not us.
My requests are simpler. If you stand with creators, journalists and small businesses, stand with us. Reshare this message. Tell us you have our back. Send this article to someone who has experienced something similar. We are standing up for you, for ourselves and for the creative community.
I will not answer questions about the identity of the entity at this time. I trust our readers to assess the information they consume. I trust businesses to recognize red flags. I trust the thousands of public relations and marketing professionals I know across the country to value reputable, sourced and legally produced work.
You decide what you consume and support, folks.
And with that, it does not need to be Browardist®. There are countless ethical journalists and creators working tirelessly across today’s communications landscape. Support them, credit them, link to them and stop writing them off.
You have now made it through a diatribe roughly four to seven times the length of an average Browardist® story, so I will leave you with a final thought.
During the latest round of gross, clout-chasing plagiarism allegations, I was on my annual mother-son trip with my mom in Asheville, North Carolina. On the nearly eight-hour drive back to my hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia, I was left completely numb. I was a shell of myself. (Sorry, mom.)
Amid it all, my mom recited a quote. “I don’t mind keeping the peace. I mind being expected to swallow disrespect just so somebody else can stay comfortable.”
That statement gave me enormous comfort because it captures the core of this nonsense. Naturally, my next thought was: “Who said that?”
Well, after some research, the origin remains debatable. So, in true actual-journalist fashion, I would say this: If you coined that line and can prove it, please contact me. I will happily give you credit.
