We thought “yellow journalism” was bad. Now, so-called “pink slime” news sites peddling politically biased stories and misinformation are filling an information void left by a US local news industry in rapid decline. What can be done to protect consumers and the integrity of online news in this environment? And how much of a threat to democracy is pink slime journalism in an election year?
Pink slime is a colloquial term for a meat by-product used as filler in ground beef. In the media arena it refers to websites that bear the visual hallmarks of a real local news outlet but publish misleading and filler local news stories to further the interests of undisclosed backers, such as partisan groups or hostile governments.
As both campaigns in the 2024 U.S. Presidential race began zeroing in on swing states, Intel 471 analysts surveyed some of the key organizations and people that color the pink slime landscape. We also investigated their funding sources, disclosures of funding, and connections to conservative and left-leaning political organizations. The organizations surveyed included Metric Media, which now runs over 1,000 local news sites across all 50 states; the Star News Digital Media, a conservative-leaning network of 12 local news outlets; The American Independent (TAI), a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization with a digital and print news platform that pushes voters to vote Democrat; and the Courier Newsroom, a “pro-democracy news network” with 10 media outlets across the US that promises “factual, values-driven news and analysis.”
Is the rapid growth of pink slime news a threat to democracy? NewsGuard Technologies, a company that rates the quality of information published by news and information websites, reported that as of June 2024, the “odds are now better than 50-50 that if you see a news website purporting to cover local news, it’s fake.” In that same month, the number of pink slime websites had reached 1,265, surpassing 1,213 daily newspapers still in operation across the US. Between August and mid-October, NewsGuard Technologies had identified 318 sites advancing election-related false claims at a rate of six false stories per week.
Our analysis finds that this corner of the media landscape has used a range of hybrid tactics to serve select interests, including by:
Metric Media, the poster child for pink slime news, generates news stories with algorithms using publicly available data sets to drive its prodigious output of over 5 million news articles monthly, according to its website. In the final weeks before election day, Intel 471 observed a notable push by Metric Media in swing states. Using Meta’s Ad Library, we found Metric Media spent over $215,000 on ads appearing on Facebook from June 27 to September 30 of this year. The majority of that spending occurred in the swing states of Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.
Metric Media ramps up on Facebook advertising targeting swing states from Jun. 27 to Sept. 30.
Our analysts make a distinction between pink slime sites and foreign influence operations spreading election disinformation, such as DoppelGänger, a Russian disinformation campaign established in 2022. While DoppelGänger does use inauthentic news sites and social media accounts, as well as AI both for article creation and social media posts, these domains are impersonating authentic domains of legitimate news organizations. With pink slime, the news outlet itself is real, but it is falsely masquerading as a neutral and trustworthy local news source.
The nature and ownership of pink slime news outlets makes it a difficult challenge to address. The U.S. government combats foreign influence campaigns, but it is less clear what can be done to control disinformation produced by US-funded entities. In September, for example, federal prosecutors charged two employees from Russian state-controlled news network, RT (formerly Russia Today), with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and helping to funnel millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based media company, Tenet Media.
Intel 471 found an instance of Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO of Star News Digital Media — one of the pink slime outlets we surveyed — downplaying the U.S. Intelligence Community’s claims of foreign interference in the Presidential election after prosecutors charged the two RT employees.
Many pink slime websites are funded by dark money groups, who do not have to disclose their donors, making tracking difficult. As opposed to all the major news outlets Intel 471 examined, none of the above media outlets have registrant information available for their domains, and instead hide behind domain privacy or anonymization services. Further complicating the issue, these pink slime outlets are often further referenced in other media publications, both pink slime and legitimate outlets, without acknowledgment of their inherent bias.
When it comes to efforts to regulate the influence of pink slime, it’s understandably complex to navigate both free speech rights and the need for truthful media regulation. Free speech is a cornerstone of democracy, yet this same freedom also opens the door for the spread of misinformation. As we witness this rapid proliferation of misleading and ideologically-driven media, the question arises: how do we maintain the rights of a free press while ensuring the information they report is accurate and trustworthy? Some claim that oversight is necessary to protect the public from misinformation that can influence public opinion, particularly during critical times such as elections. Some also propose that regulatory oversight should include transparency in funding sources, labeling of AI content and labeling of biased content, to ensure that consumers can make informed choices about what they read.
However, critics warn that any attempt to regulate truthfulness could be misused by those in power to silence dissenting opinions or marginalized perspectives. Such regulation is, quite simply, not going to happen in time for the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. Currently, the burden is entirely on the consumer to consume trustworthy media. Readers should use best practices for media literacy, such as using multiple sources to reduce reliance on any single source; investigating a source’s history, funding and ownership; and being wary of news shared via social media postings and advertisements.
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