In the heart of Glasgow’s city centre, at 11 Elmbank Street, there is a wall. It is currently “ugly,” according to planning documents. Soon, it will feature a mural. But if you followed the digital firestorm on X (formerly Twitter) last week, you would be forgiven for thinking the city council had officially signed a death warrant for human creativity in exchange for “AI slop” featuring American bald eagles.

The reality, however, is far more mundane—and far more revealing about the state of Scottish journalism.

The Anatomy of a Non-Story

The narrative, largely driven by an “exclusive” from The National, centered on a planning application that used an AI-generated image as a placeholder. The image was undeniably bizarre: a cluttered montage of Highland cows, a Wallace-esque monument, and American bald eagles.

The internet did what it does best: it recoiled. The “keyboard warriors,” as the developer Derek Paterson later called them, pounced on the “laziness” of using AI. A single tweet from a National editor garnered over 800,000 views, fueling a wave of vitriol that included reported threats against the proposer.

But here is the “Constructive Realism” that was buried behind a paywall: The AI image was never intended to be the mural.

As revealed deep within the reporting, the AI render was merely “indicative”—a rough sketch to show the council the scale and intent of the project for administrative purposes. Furthermore, the developer had already commissioned a human artist: Bobby McNamara, better known as Rogue One, one of Glasgow’s most respected muralists.

Profiting from Tribalism

At oorNews, we believe in “Steel Manning” arguments—addressing the strongest version of an opponent’s position. The valid concern here is that AI could displace artists. That is a debate worth having.

However, by framing a routine planning placeholder as a “green-lit AI mural,” the media didn’t start a debate; they triggered a tribal reflex. They fed the “Anti-AI” camp a diet of outrage while keeping the clarifying facts—that a local artist was getting the job—locked behind a subscription.

The result? A massive reach for the sensational lie, and a negligible reach for the boring truth. Statistics show that while the outrage reached nearly a million impressions, the clarifications struggled to reach a few thousand. This isn’t just bad reporting; it’s the monetisation of division.

The Glass House of Newsquest

The irony reaches a fever pitch when you look at the parent company of The National, Newsquest. While their titles stoke public fear about “soulless” AI replacing human muralists, Newsquest has been a pioneer in integrating AI into their own newsrooms.

From hiring “AI-assisted reporters” to using ChatGPT-based tools to “churn out bread and butter content,” the corporate machine behind these articles is arguably doing exactly what they are accusing a small Glasgow developer of doing: using technology to bypass traditional human labor.

It is “Destructive Tribalism” at its finest: tell the public that AI is an American invader coming for their murals, all while using AI to optimise the very articles telling the story.

A Better Path: AI for Human Flourishing

At oorNews, we take a different approach. We are currently a one-person operation using AI not to replace the human spirit, but to amplify it.

We use AI trained on our own article database to speed up translation of complex news into Central Scots, Doric, and Northern Isles variants. We don’t do this to “churn content,” but to ensure that Scots speakers, who have been marginalised in media for centuries, can finally see their language used in serious, technical and global contexts.

Our use of AI is transparent. It is human-led. It is designed for societal impact, not click-driven rage. We believe technology should be a tool for preservation, not a weapon for a culture war.

The Bottom Line

No one wants “AI slop” on the streets of Glasgow. Not the public, and most of all not even the person who submitted the planning application.

The “scandal” of the Elmbank Street mural wasn’t about an eagle; it was about an industry that prefers a profitable fight over a quiet truth. Glasgow’s mural trail remains safe in the hands of artists like Rogue One. It’s the integrity of our news cycle that needs a redesign.