Pink-slime journalism

Last updated

Pink-slime journalism is a practice in which American news outlets, or fake partisan operations masquerading as such, publish poor-quality news reports which appear to be local news. [1] Researchers and media credibility raters have observed pink-slime journalism being used to support both Republican Party and Democratic Party politicians or policies. [1] [2] [3] The use of these websites to gather user data has also been observed. [4] [2] [5] The reports are either computer-generated or written by poorly-paid outsourced writers, sometimes using pen names. [2] [6] [7]

Contents

The term "pink-slime journalism" was coined by journalist Ryan Smith in 2012. [5] A related term, "news mirage", was coined in 2024 by journalists Miranda Green and David Folkenflik to refer to websites that "look like news, but in truth [serve as] mouthpieces" for corporations or advocacy groups with a non-journalistic agenda. [8]

Media watchdog organization Newsguard reported in June 2024 that the "number of partisan-backed outlets designed to look like impartial news outlets has officially surpassed the number of real, local daily newspapers in the U.S." [9]

Overview

The name "pink slime journalism" is a reference to "pink slime", a meat by-product that is used as filler in processed meats, which are sometimes passed off as higher-quality meat in fast food restaurants. [10] [11]

The primary defining characteristics of pink slime journalism are:

Not all poor-quality publishers that heavily rely on AI or other automated content-generation and that purport to publish local news have a partisan motivation. Two examples are Hoodline and Newsbreak. [12] [13]

Additionally, some websites (which have been referred to as "news mirages") produce relatively high-quality work, but obscure the non-journalistic agenda of their publisher, which might be an advocacy group or self-interested corporation. [8]

Content production

Pink-slime journalism involves outsourcing local news stories to low-wage employees, or using computer automation to generate news stories from various datasets. [2] [7] Pink-slime websites can often be identified by their heavy use of automatically generated or templated content and lack of original reporting.

In 2012 writers employed by a pink-slime network were being paid between $0.35 and $24 per article; [11] the New York Times reported in October 2020 that journalists were being paid between $3 and $36 per article. [4]

Focus on local news

The design and naming of pink-slime news publications often resemble that of independent local news outlets.

With newspapers in decline over the past decade, dedicated pink-slime outlets have filled the voids left by shuttered local newspapers. [2]

According to researcher Priyanjana Bengani of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, pink-slime news outlets mimic local news outlets to take advantage of the trust that people tend to place in local journalism. [1]

According to the Columbia Journalism Review , pink-slime outlets attempt to exploit people's faith in local news, as well as capitalize on the information deserts created by declining local news. [2]

Use as a partisan tool

Pink slime websites often are financed by political partisans, and in their news content, present the candidates and policies favored by the partisans who fund the website in a favorable light, while presenting the candidates and policies disfavored by the partisans who fund the website in a negative light. [14] [1]

Scholars who study pink-slime journalism estimated in 2022 that there are many more pink-slime websites connected to conservative interests than to liberal or progressive interests, with the ratio being about "1,200 right-wing local news sites....[and] fewer than 70 left-leaning" such websites. [14] One of the reasons for the preponderance of conservative pink-slime websites over left-leaning pink-slime websites is the existence of one major right-wing network, with over 1,000 local websites in it, headed by Brian Timpone and partially financed by Texas billionaire Tim Dunn. [14]

According to Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, although many such outlets claim to be independent, they are financed by "government officials, political candidates, PACs and political party operatives". [10]

Pink-slime websites often step up their content production during election cycles. [5] [2] [7]

Relative to the political purposes served by the slant of the content on these websites, the Columbia Journalism Review has additionally reported that some of these outlets appear to be used to gather data from users for political targeting purposes. [2]

Quantity

The Columbia Journalism Review identified around 450 websites that appeared to be pink-slime outlets in a December 2019 report; [2] they reported in August 2020 that the number had almost tripled to more than 1,200 websites in the months preceding the 2020 United States presidential election. [7]

Examples

Journatic, founded in 2006, produced hyperlocal news content and distributed it to other publishers. The company created its articles using a combination of computer generation and low-wage writers who were not local to the areas for which they were writing. [11] Some of these writers were poorly-paid workers from outside of the United States who were writing under fake names. [6] [11] Newspapers throughout the United States including the Chicago Tribune , the San Francisco Chronicle , and the Houston Chronicle had all published journalism from Journatic. [11] Journatic's practices were exposed in 2012 in a report by This American Life , which interviewed Ryan Smith, a journalist who had been working for Journatic, and who coined the term "pink-slime journalism". [5] [1] The exposé also revealed Journatic's use of false bylines, fabricated quotes, and plagiarized material. [2] Newspapers canceled their contracts with Journatic following this revelation, including the Chicago Tribune, who had laid off employees and replaced their work with articles from Journatic. [11] Journatic rebranded to Locality Labs the following year. [2]

Brian Timpone, who was the chief executive of Journatic, is an American businessman who runs various pink-slime networks which contribute reports to over 1,000 individual news websites. [7] Research by the Columbia Journalism Review in December 2019 found that pink-slime networks operating hundreds of websites traced back to organizations connected to Timpone. [2] One such organization, Metric Media, had set up 189 local news networks in ten states within a year. Other organizations included Locality Labs, Franklin Archer, the Record Inc., and Local Government Information Services; all were connected to Timpone in some way. [2] [15] [16] Many of the articles distributed through these networks were right-leaning, [2] and more than 90% of them were computer-generated or repurposed from other reports. [7] According to the New York Times, the sites operated by Timpone's networks do not typically post false information, but "the operation is rooted in deception, eschewing hallmarks of news reporting like fairness and transparency". [4] The sites typically do not disclose that they are funded by advocacy groups or that they are paid to run articles. [4]

NewsGuard reported in October 2022 that left-leaning websites including The Main Street Sentinel, Courier Newsroom , and The American Independent , as well as the right-leaning Metric Media network, were running ads on social media while hiding their partisan funding and connections. The NewsGuard report referred to the newsrooms as "'pink slime' newsrooms". [17] [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nieman Foundation for Journalism</span> Journalism institution at Harvard University

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism is the primary journalism institution at Harvard University.

The Madison / St. Clair Record, also called The Record and formerly called The Madison County Record, is a weekly legal journal covering the Madison and St. Clair County Civil Courts in the state of Illinois As of 2011, it is located at 301 N. Main Street, Edwardsville, Illinois, with a staff consisting of publisher Brian Timpone, editor Ann Knef, senior writer Bethany Krajelis, office manager, Stacey Strojny and courts reporter Christina Stueve.

The Missouri School of Journalism housed under University of Missouri in Columbia is one of the oldest formal journalism schools in the world. The school provides academic education and practical training in all areas of journalism and strategic communication for undergraduate and graduate students across several media platforms including television and radio broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, photography, and new media. The school also supports an advertising and public relations curriculum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Independent Institute</span> Liberal nonprofit

The American Independent is a pseudo-news organization funded by Democratic Party political action committees. According to the organization, its aim is to support journalism which exposes "the nexus of conservative power in Washington." The current institute, started by David Brock in 2014, is a relaunch of the former state-based digital news-gathering network known as the American Independent News Network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maynard Institute for Journalism Education</span> American nonprofit organization

The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (MIJE) is an American non-profit organization that trains journalists to become investigative journalists, editors, newspaper managers, and media entrepreneurs. The organization seeks to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in newsrooms to diversify coverage of the news itself, creating a more complex and representative picture of the American news landscape.

The Franklin News Foundation, previously the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, is an American online nonprofit news organization that publishes news and commentary from a conservative and free market, limited government perspective on state and local politics. Its journalism platform is called The Center Square, rebranded from Watchdog.org. Founded in 2009 in North Dakota, the organization moved to Virginia and is now based in Chicago.

The Center Square, formerly Watchdog.org, is a conservative American news website that features reporting on state and local governments. It is a project of the Franklin News Foundation, a conservative online news organization. The Center Square distributes its content through a newswire service.

California Watch, part of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting, began producing stories in 2009. The official launch of the California Watch website took place in January 2010. The team was best known for producing well researched and widely distributed investigative stories on topics of interest to Californians. In small ways, the newsroom pioneered in the digital space, including listing the names of editors and copy editors at the bottom of each story, custom-editing stories for multiple partners, developing unique methods to engage with audiences and distributing the same essential investigative stories to newsrooms across the state. It worked with many news outlets, including newspapers throughout the state, all of the ABC television affiliates in California, KQED radio and television and dozens of websites. The Center for Investigative Reporting created California Watch with $3.5 million in seed funding. The team won several industry awards for its public interest reporting, including the George Polk Award in 2012. In addition to numerous awards won for its investigative reports, the California Watch website also won an Online Journalism Award in the general excellence category from the Online News Association in its first year of existence.

The Conversation is a network of nonprofit media outlets publishing news stories and research reports online, with accompanying expert opinion and analysis. Articles are written by academics and researchers under a Creative Commons license, allowing reuse without modification. Copyright terms for images are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. Its model has been described as explanatory journalism. Except in "exceptional circumstances", it only publishes articles by "academics employed by, or otherwise formally connected to, accredited institutions, including universities and accredited research bodies".

The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) is a non-profit consortium of nonprofit journalism organizations. The organization promotes nonprofit investigative and public service journalism by supporting its members and the nonprofit news industry as a whole. Examples of services offered by INN includes helping news organizations with collaborations, training in best-practices and fundraising, and providing affordable back-office services.

De Correspondent is a Dutch news website based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was launched on 30 September 2013 after raising more than €1 million in a crowdfunding campaign in eight days. The website distinguishes itself by rejecting the daily news cycle and focusing on in-depth and chronological coverage on a topical basis, led by individual correspondents who each focus on specific topics. Sometimes it publishes English versions of its articles.

Automated journalism, also known as algorithmic journalism or robot journalism, is a term that attempts to describe modern technological processes that have infiltrated the journalistic profession, such as news articles and videos generated by computer programs. There are four main fields of application for automated journalism, namely automated content production, Data Mining, news dissemination and content optimization. Through artificial intelligence (AI) software, stories are produced automatically by computers rather than human reporters. These programs interpret, organize, and present data in human-readable ways. Typically, the process involves an algorithm that scans large amounts of provided data, selects from an assortment of pre-programmed article structures, orders key points, and inserts details such as names, places, amounts, rankings, statistics, and other figures. The output can also be customized to fit a certain voice, tone, or style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coda Media</span> News organization based in New York

Coda Media is a nonprofit news organization that produces journalism about the roots of major global crises. It was founded in 2016 by Natalia Antelava, a former BBC correspondent, and Ilan Greenberg, a magazine and newspaper writer who served as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Chalkbeat is a non-profit news organization that covers education in several American communities. Its mission is to "inform the decisions and actions that lead to better outcomes for children and families by providing deep, local coverage of education policy and practice." It aims to cover "the effort to improve schools for all children, especially those who have historically lacked access to a quality education". Its areas of focus include under-reported stories, education policy, equity, trends, and local reporting.

Brian Timpone is an American conservative businessman and former journalist who operates a network of nearly 1,300 conservative local news websites. In 2012, Timpone stated that articles on his websites are partially written by freelancers outside of the United States, although he described the writing as "domestic" in a separate interview. According to The New York Times, Timpone's "operation is rooted in deception, eschewing hallmarks of news reporting like fairness and transparency." His sites publish articles for pay from outside groups, and do not disclose it.

Courier Newsroom is a digital media company that operates news outlets and sponsors political content intended to support Democratic candidates. It microtargets voters via social media advertising with the intention to both inform and persuade.

States Newsroom is a nonprofit news network with newsrooms or a partner news organization in all 50 U.S. states that focus mostly on state policy and politics.

Timothy Marvin Dunn is an American billionaire businessman. He is the chief executive officer of CrownQuest Operating, an oil and gas business he co-founded in 1996. He is influential in Texas politics, and is a major financial backer of various politically conservative causes and organizations. As of July 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$2.2 billion.

Monty J. Bennett is an American businessman who founded and is the chairman and CEO of Ashford Inc., a hospitality real estate company. He is also the publisher of the Dallas Express, a news website launched in 2021 in Dallas, Texas. He is a Republican donor and is known for various political causes in Texas.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Davies, David Martin; Bengani, Priyanjana (April 13, 2023). "Pink Slime news is spreading in news deserts" (Radio broadcast). Texas Public Radio . Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Bengani, Priyanjana (December 18, 2019). "Hundreds of 'pink slime' local news outlets are distributing algorithmic stories and conservative talking points". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  3. 1 2 Alba, Davey (October 27, 2022). "Meta is making millions off political ads from fake 'pink slime' newsrooms". Fortune. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4
  5. 1 2 3 4 Graham, Jennifer (September 7, 2021). "Understanding 'pink slime journalism' and what it reveals about conservatives and liberals". Deseret News . Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  6. 1 2 Kennedy, Dan (July 5, 2012). "Exposing the "'pink slime' journalism" of Journatic". Media Nation. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bengani, Priyanjana (August 4, 2020). "As election looms, a network of mysterious 'pink slime' local news outlets nearly triples in size". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  8. 1 2 Dhanesha, Neel (June 26, 2024). "Cityside launches Richmondside, its third local news site in California". Nieman Labs. Retrieved June 29, 2024.
  9. ↑ Fischer, Sara (June 19, 2024). "Dark money news outlets outpacing local daily newspapers". Axios. Retrieved June 12, 2024.
  10. 1 2 Murphy, Hannah; Venkataramakrishnan, Siddharth (October 15, 2020). "Local news is drowning in 'pink slime' ahead of US election". Financial Times . Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cohen, Nicole S. (April 3, 2015). "From Pink Slips to Pink Slime: Transforming Media Labor in a Digital Age". The Communication Review . 18 (2): 98–122. doi:10.1080/10714421.2015.1031996. ISSN   1071-4421. S2CID   146768332.
  12. ↑ Dhanesha, Neel (June 3, 2024). "What's in a byline? For Hoodline's AI-generated local news, everything — and nothing". Nieman Labs. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  13. ↑ Pearson, James (June 5, 2024). "NewsBreak: Most downloaded US news app has Chinese roots and 'writes fiction' using AI". Reuters. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  14. 1 2 3 Monacelli, Steven (November 4, 2022). "Whodunnit?: West Texas Billionaire Funds 'Pink Slime' Journalism". Texas Observer . Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  15. ↑ Sokotoff, Dominick (November 1, 2019). "Pseudo local news sites in Michigan reveal nationally expanding network". The Michigan Daily . Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  16. ↑ Thompson, Carol (October 20, 2019). "Dozens of new websites appear to be Michigan local news outlets, but with political bent". Lansing State Journal . Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  17. ↑ Arvanitis, Lorenzo (October 2022). "Dark Money Political Ads Proliferate on Facebook and Instagram". NewsGuard . Retrieved March 31, 2023.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.