Is there an example of a reputable (subjective, sure) news source having done this?
The article it published was a nationally syndicated piece, though. Maybe they thought somebody else was vetting?
I'd bet money this isn't the only place that has machine generated content. Proving exactly what is and isn't that would be a bit tricky.
[1] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/robo-journalism-good-n...
For a while (until I got to lazy) I maintained a front page article that talked about everything going on in the blog linking to tag pages that should have (but didn't) enjoy the same love. It was challenging to have a single sentence describe a group of articles and string those sentences into an article that sufficiently hides the truth that the blog randomly rambled all over the place. There was a lack of urgency for new articles to appear (except from the rss feed) in stead the front page article revealed missing posts. You could compare it to a wiki (while html offers the same utility) but the blog had 3 clear levels and blog like articles that rarely got updated.
It had me spend some thoughts on the absurdity of putting a log file on the front page or attempting to massage that automation into something nice? Everyone is doing it so it must be right.
They have the same explanatory power as similar drivel written by humans, and you walk away feeling similarly uninformed.
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."