Rise of Partisan “Pink Slime” Sites Eclipses Independent Newspapers Online

Partisan-funded websites masquerading as local news outlets have now surpassed the number of independent daily newspaper sites online, as revealed by a disinformation watchdog report published on Tuesday.

Per NewsGuard Technologies, an organization assessing the reliability of news websites, the count of such “pink slime” sites has climbed to 1,265. This increase follows the uncovering of a network of 167 sites disseminating Russian disinformation, spearheaded by John Mark Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff who fled to Moscow amid investigations for computer hacking and extortion.

For comparison, only 1,213 daily newspapers are still active in the U.S., according to Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative.

“With traditional newspapers vanishing at a pace of about two and a half per week, pink slime sites are stepping in to fill the gap,” the report stated. “As a result, millions of Americans are left without authentic local news coverage.”

The report also mentioned that Dougan’s network marks the first known instance where foreign disinformation efforts have intersected with pink slime sites, a term derived from the controversial meat filler discovered in ground beef products around 2012.

“There are different interpretations of pink slime, but fundamentally, it refers to sites pretending to be something they are not,” explained Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University in Boston.

“This is particularly prevalent in local news, where bad actors exploit news deserts by setting up digital outlets that appear local but are not,” Kennedy said.

Risks Posed by Pink Slime Sites

NewsGuard Senior Analyst Chiara Vercellone highlighted the multiple risks that pink slime sites pose to communities. “These sites can confuse readers about which sources are trustworthy, thereby undermining the credibility of genuine local news outlets,” Vercellone noted.

“They often push specific political agendas,” she continued, “polarizing community opinions and influencing voting behaviors without readers fully realizing the sources’ biases.”

Vercellone referred to a 2023 Courier Newsroom study, which found that subscribers to its newsletters for more than eight months were most likely to change their candidate support. The study also indicated that recipients of Courier’s political newsletters increased their support for Democratic candidates by five percentage points.

The NewsGuard report highlighted that these partisan websites pretending to be local news outlets include groups from both the left and the right, such as Metric Media, Local Government Information Services, Courier Newsroom, The American Independent, and States Newsroom. These networks received low ratings from NewsGuard for failing to meet basic journalistic standards.

Kennedy argued that NewsGuard might be overstretching the definition of pink slime by including projects that provide reliable news but have some undisclosed partisan funding. “Labeling States Newsroom as a pink slime project, for instance, seems like a stretch. Perhaps States Newsroom should be more transparent, but that doesn’t mean it offers no value,” he said.

Ubiquity of Partisanship

Vincent Raynauld, an assistant professor at Emerson College, pointed out that pink slime websites adopt a partisan approach to news delivery.

“Partisanship is increasingly influencing how people behave both politically and personally,” Raynauld explained. “There are even dating websites where political identity is a key feature. Pink slime takes advantage of this trend to make a quick profit.”

“It’s more than just fake news; it’s the first step toward fostering mistrust in news organizations, which can build a low-trust society,” said Vanessa Walilko, an independent scholar in Chicago.

She added, “Low-trust societies are more vulnerable to authoritarian takeovers.”

While fake news is problematic, it isn’t a serious threat to society, argued David Inserra, a fellow at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

“There has always been and will always be fake or poor-quality news,” Inserra pointed out. “It’s important to remember that while the internet enabled these pink slime sites to emerge, it also allowed many Americans to become citizen journalists.”

“While some may feel nostalgic for the media landscape of 1990, back then, if the media ignored issues important to you or didn’t represent your viewpoints fairly, you had few other local options,” he noted.

“Nowadays, we have numerous ways to access, share, and create valuable information online from a variety of perspectives,” he continued. “The challenge lies in being discerning and critical consumers of this vast increase in available information.”

Expected Increase in Pink Slime Sites

Mark Marino, director of the Humanities and Critical Code Studies Lab at the University of Southern California, found the findings in the NewsGuard report concerning. “It’s alarming where we are today, and it doesn’t even account for the impending change as more people use ChatGPT and other AI models to generate content sites,” he said.

Moreover, another rise in pink slime sites is expected as the country approaches an election. “In previous election years, we saw an increase in pink slime networks and the emergence of new sites,” Vercellone noted. “For instance, before the 2022 U.S. midterms, NewsGuard discovered a new network of five news websites in battleground states that consistently pushed left-leaning content aimed at swaying potential voters.”

“The average voter will have a more challenging time this year discerning the truth and will have to navigate through increasing amounts of disinformation,” Marino predicted.

Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media, a news and analysis website, echoed these concerns. “The decline of local news has fueled political polarization,” Sterling said. “Regrettably, I’m not very hopeful about the situation.”

“Major tech platforms seem, at best, indifferent to combating disinformation and only sporadically enforce measures,” he added. “Foreign adversaries have clearly recognized an opportunity to destabilize the U.S. and influence elections.”

“As we approach November, I believe the situation will only worsen,” he concluded. “Many Americans, who are prone to believing conspiracies, don’t seem to have the savvy to distinguish between real and fake news.”