Stealth Partisan Outlets Exploit Trust in Local Journalism

New researchfrom Carnegie Mellon University's Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science found that partisan media operations spent millions of dollars on social media ads ahead of key elections to promote pink slime websites masquerading as local news sources to sway voters with their content. Named after the meat by-product of the same name, pink slime journalism refers to news websites that publish digitally generated, low-quality content or partisan articles under the guise of being a local news source. As reliable local news sources have diminished, these pink slime sites have emerged to fill the gap. But unlike real local news sources, the public doesn't know who funds and influences these organizations. Researchers in CMU'sSoftware and Societal Systems Department(S3D) found that leading up to the 2020 and 2024 elections, Facebook ad spending for pink slime journalism sites spiked, going from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. While these pink slime sites typically have no real ties to the local community they claim to cover, they publish a mixture of digitally generated local and national news. The harm, researchers say, rests in how these sites exploit people's trust in local news to impact their beliefs. Also, as AI-generated content improves, more articles on pink slime sites appear to be written by real people even though they were manufactured by AI. For their study, the researchers collected 14,581 advertisement posts shared from 310 Facebook pages, linking to 383 unique domains, the majority of which had pink slime origins. Along with the spending trends, researchers also identified who was targeted and found that organizations tailored their campaigns along demographic and state lines. Researchers found these sites targeted more swing states and specific populations during crucial election years. The left-leaning sites targeted more women than men with more impressions from those under 55 years of age, and more right-leaning sites targeted more men and got more impressions from those older than 55. Also, while the ad spending on Facebook promoted pink slime sites, they also linked to other social media platforms, such as X and Reddit. These organizations also used local Facebook groups aimed at specific populations. Lynnette Ng, an S3D doctoral alumna who worked on this research, said by sharing these articles inside community Facebook groups, pink slime operations tap into existing social trust. "For these companies, Facebook groups are a great proxy for the local populace," she said. "If you want to spread the news from your website and you find a group of people likely to be interested, it's easier to spread straight to a group of people rather than individually." Pink slime sites are typically owned by a parent organization that operates a network of news outlets using digitally generated content they tweak to appeal to the local community. For example, Metric Media, which researchers identified in the study, runs about a thousand of these sites, including the Scranton Reporter, which includes coverage areas of a contentious congressional race. The Scranton Reporter's Government section features numerous articles about the Republican incumbent's work on federal grants and roundtables without any coverage of the race as a whole. "Most people would prefer to go to a local or regional newspaper than to the big newspapers for information, according to research," said S3D ProfessorKathleen M. Carley. "These sites will have the local information, like sports scores, which you don't need a journalist to do. But these sites also have national stories, and they make them look like they were done locally because they put a picture of someone local into it. It becomes this method of shaping people's views, and there's a potential for a disproportionate effect on people's attitudes and beliefs because it's perceived as more real, more accurate, more valuable because it's local, as opposed to having to trust in the New York Times or Washington Post." The CMU researchers analyzed three parent organizations that operate pink slime sites: Courier, Metric Media and American Independent Media. They identified Metric Media as having conservative leanings, while the Courier and American Independent have more liberal leanings. Carley said that as AI-generated content improves and mimics real journalism, audiences could have more trouble discerning the political influences these sites are trying to exert. Researchers found that pink slime sites don't vanish after elections. They continue operating, focusing instead on lawsuits and legal fights, along with local content. The goal, researchers note, is to keep the Facebook accounts and pages active and fresh in people's minds. Researchers said they expect advertising dollars and posting on Facebook to increase in upcoming elections. Along with Carley and Ng, the research team included Christine Lepird, a former S3D Ph.D. student who now works at Johns Hopkins University. This work builds on Lepird and Carley's larger research program examining the rise of pink slime journalism. Their research analyzed how these sites spread across social media and exploit trust in local news, and how emerging computational methods can identify new pink slime outlets before they become widely established. The researchers argue that understanding and detecting these networks is increasingly important as automated content generation and AI-assisted publishing make it easier to create large numbers of seemingly local news sources at scale. Carley said that the goal of this research isn't to criticize the use of generative AI for providing informative content, like business openings or upcoming events. But it can become problematic when it provides biased or incomplete information through avenues people think they can trust. "When it comes to things like political commentary or scientific commentary, the danger of these pink slime sites is you're letting one group, and you don't even know who they are, control the message," Carley said.