06/11/2024

Sad Milestone: Fake Local News Sites Now Outnumber Real Local Newspaper Sites in U.S

Russian Disinformation Operative’s AI-Aided Handiwork Joins PAC-Financed Sites on Left and Right to Edge Past Legitimate Newspaper Sites

(June 11, 2024 — New York) The odds are now better than 50-50 that if you see a news website purporting to cover local news, it’s fake.

In a new report published in NewsGuard’s Reality Check newsletter, NewsGuard analysts have found that the number of so-called “pink slime” websites—those that present themselves as neutral local news outlets but are backed by or tied to partisan groups or hostile governments—now outnumber the number of daily local newspapers in the United States.

As of June 2024, NewsGuard has identified 1,265 “pink slime” outlets across the country, officially surpassing the 1,213 daily newspapers left operating in the U.S. Most of these “pink slime” outlets have emerged in the past few years, as the number of traditional newspapers disappear at a rate of two and a half per week, according to Northwestern’s Local News Initiative.

The tipping point was reached after a NewsGuard analysts identified a network of 167 news sites operating as part of a sophisticated pro-Russia disinformation network. The sites 64 of which are posing as local news outlets, spread false narratives serving Russian interests ahead of the U.S. elections, NewsGuard found. The network is the first apparent crossover of its kind between so-called “pink slime” sites, artificial intelligence, and Russian disinformation.

The 64 “pink slime” sites adopt innocuous names like “The Boston Times” and “The Miami Chronicle,” and are apparently owned or at least operated by John Mark Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff now residing in Moscow under Kremlin protection.

Pink slime sites have rushed to fill the void left by shuttering local newspapers in the U.S. In addition to the recently discovered network, NewsGuard’s analysts are tracking pink slime sites run by partisan groups on the left and the right, including, among others, Metric Media, Local Government Information Services, Courier Newsroom, The American Independent, and States Newsroom. All of these sites, including those part of the Dougan network, receive low ratings from NewsGuard for failing to adhere to basic journalistic standards, warning readers to proceed with caution.

The partisan networks often provide little to no information about their political agenda, posing a major risk to readers who may be unaware of the websites’ goals: to sway public opinion, typically before an election.

NewsGuard has found that “pink slime” networks are not only launching new websites ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential elections, but are also reviving old tactics to reach potential voters. Residents of battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio, have been targeted by partisan old-school print newspapers disguised as independent local news since early 2024 – a practice that NewsGuard identified was spearheaded ahead of the 2022 U.S. midterms by the liberal American Independent network.

About NewsGuard

Founded by media entrepreneur and award-winning journalist Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard provides transparent tools to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Since launching in 2018, its global staff of trained journalists and information specialists has collected, updated, and deployed more than 6.9 million data points on more than 35,000 news and information sources, and cataloged and tracked all the top false narratives spreading online.

NewsGuard’s analysts, powered by multiple AI tools, operate the trust industry’s largest and most accountable dataset on news. These data are deployed to fine-tune and provide guardrails for generative AI models, enable brands to advertise on quality news sites and avoid propaganda or hoax sites, provide media literacy guidance for individuals, and support democratic governments in countering hostile disinformation operations targeting their citizens.

Among other indicators of the scale of its operations is that NewsGuard’s apolitical and transparent criteria have been applied by its analysts to rate news sources accounting for 95% of online engagement with news across nine countries.