More Online Culinary Delights from the Sloppy and Slimy Side of
Internet:
Pink Slime Journalism, Where
the Slop Hits the News
In a simpler time, the term
pink slime referred to a meat by-product added to ground beef.
The substance is made from meat that gets trimmed off cuts of beef
along with fat. These trimmings are first simmered at a low temperature
to separate muscle and fat. The mixture is then spun in a centrifuge to
complete the separation. The resulting meat paste is exposed to ammonia
gas or citric acid to kill bacteria. Finally, it’s dyed pink, packaged
into bricks, frozen, and shipped to meat packing plants.
Hmm... SlimeBurgers
Pink Slime is said to convey the idea that much news reporting is now reminiscent of the "yellow journalism" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries— only worse. As reported by DesertNews, September 7, 2020:
The term “pink-slime journalism,” believed to have been coined in 2012 by journalist Ryan Smith, suggests something more sinister than “yellow journalism,” which describes news coverage that is overly sensational or tawdry and which dates to the 19th century. Pink-slime journalism, however, is thoroughly modern, enabled by computer-generated articles and accounts compiled by people who may not live in the United States
Surely, William Randolph Hearst, would have thought Artificial Intelligence referred to the intellectual capacities of many of his employees.
Pink slime new sites have proliferated as legitimate local news become ever more rare Fake news sites are rising up to fill in this growing gap in traditional journalism — now often referred to as "legacy journalism." Filling in this gap are a growing number of fake news sites that practice "Pink Slime" journalism. These blogs and websites proliferate in what are called "news deserts." As defined by Wikipedia, a news desert refers to a region of the country or a locality where no legitimate source of local news exists. As the website of the Poynter Institute reported in 2018, a study made by the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism showed that more than 1,300 U.S. communities had lost all news coverage, as of the time of publication.
Many pink slime news sites have their origins outside of the United States. One such site, NewBreak, has been reported by the Reuters News Agency, June 5, 2024, to be the most downloaded news application. As Reuters reported, although NewsBreak has offices in Mountain View, CA, it main work is done in offices located in China. Many of the stories posted to NewsBreak are generated by Artificial Intelligence and have been proven to be false, often with devastating consequences to local communities. So much so, that NewBreak now posts on its website a disclaimer that states what it reports "may not always be error-free."
In May 2023, Sage Publications published a 25 page report titled, "How Sticky Is Pink Slime? Assessing the Credibility of Deceptive Local Media." The report is authored by by Joshua P. Darr, who is an associate professor in the Newhouse School of Public Communications. Darr surveys the concomitant trends of a shrinking market of local news, and the growing trend of pink journalism websites, with pink slime sites taking the place of legitimate local news. In his introduction, Darr clearly explains how these two trends intersect.
The ongoing decline of local news not only deprives communities of important information, but also provides an opening for misinformation through so-called pink slime journalism: local media that poses as a news outlet and exploits the low cost of automating content to deceive readers.
As an example of a pink slime news site, Darr cites "The Lansing Sun." The Lansing Sun sounds like a local Michigan newspaper. It is no such thing, however. According to Darr , the purpose of The Lansing Sun is "to fool unfamiliar readers into thinking they are legacy media sources with established reputations for reporting." Darr describes much of what LansingSun reports are noted on the pinl slime website as authored by "Press release submission.” Often supported by partisan donors, Darr states that operators of pink slime new sites hope "to take advantage of the high levels of trust in partisan news to slip in an ideological message to unaware readers."
Locally, in Southern California, the local PBS affiliate for San Deigo, KPBS, reported May 15, 2024, the "San Diego City Wire," along with the "East San Diego News," have been found to be pink slime news sites. As the KPBS report said about these news states:
A closer look at San Diego City Wire or East San Diego News reveals that a lot is missing behind the facade of a traditional news site. There aren’t any bylines and no way to contact individual reporters or editors.
In Los Angeles county, two pink slime sites were singled out by KPBS, "West LA Times and Santa Clara Today." What these sites have in common is their association with the one company, Metric Media. Metric Media is known for publishing stories that are not written by any human journalists, but rather are "algorithmically generated articles,” as was reported by DesertNews cited above.
The pink slime movement grew significantly during the 2020 Presidential election cycle. The Tow Center, which is associated with Columbia University School of Journalism, has been researching the growing trend of pink slime journalism. Priyanjana Bengani, senior research fellow for the Tow Center, told DesertNews, cited above, that in 2020, "at least 189 of 450 websites she has investigated are linked to a single company, Metric Media." Ars Technica reported, April 4, 2024, that in the aftermath of the 2022 midterms elections, there was a substantial increase in money fed to the pink slime news sites. Much of that incraese in funds went to advertising pink slime sites on social media platforms, like Facebook. Kathleen Carley, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told Ars that, as a result of this increase in funding, “A lot of these sites have had makeovers and look more realistic,” adding that, “I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of that moving forward.” The Darr paper, cited above, also makes reference to Metric Media as a driving force toward greater saturation of pink slime sites that bend towards the right. One reason given for this explosion of pink slime sites, according to The Tow Center's Begani, is that “It’s easy to emulate what a news site looks like. It’s not easy to emulate the content, but it’s easy to emulate the design.” (DesertNews ibid.)
As the 2024 election season heats up, so have the disinformation campaigns. Media watchdog firm, NewsGuard, reported recently that 167 Russian sponsored pink slime websites have sprung up around the US. These sites are the handiwork of one US expatriate, "John Mark Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff who fled to Moscow after being investigated for computer hacking and extortion." Dougan has been found responsible for some of the most egregious Russian disinformation concerning the War in Ukraine. Among his most fallacious features were reports that Ukrainian President "Zelensky purchased two seven-figure luxury yachts." This fake news story, which made it the halls of Congress, originated from a pink slime site affiliated with Dougan called the DCWeekly.
A pink slime journalism dark money fueled arms race has emerged as the 2024 election season heats up. Axios reported, June 4, 2024, that:
...the vast majority of the sites observed are backed by Metric Media, a conservative network traced back to media entrepreneur Brian Timpone, who has links to conservative donors... Most of the Metric Media sites don't include much information about the sites' funders or management. The stories typically lack bylines and many are outdated or marked as "press release submissions.
Progressive leaning pink slime have also proliferated this election season. Darr mention Courier News as a left leaning group of pink slime sites. The Guardian Newspaper, in a report dated, June 20, 2024, stated that Courier News is, however, more open and transparent about its fundingthan are the sites owned by Metric Media. Courier News admits that funding has come from noted liberal activists, Reid Hoffman and George Soros. A spokesperson for Courier News rejected the characterization of its journalism as pink slime.
Courier publishes award-winning, factual local news by talented journalists who live in the communities we cover, and our reporting is often cited by legacy media outlets. This is in stark contrast to the pink slime networks that pretend to have a local presence but crank out low-quality fake news with no bylines and no accountability. Courier is proudly transparent about our pro-democracy values, and we carry on the respected American tradition of advocacy journalism.
As Matt Skibinski, general manager of NewsGuard, told The Guardian cited above, although right wing leaning activist have created more pink slime sites, those site are "probably getting less attention per site, and on the left, there is a smaller number of sites, but they are more strategic about getting attention to those sites on Facebook and elsewhere."
What sets current 2024 pink slime sites apart from earlier pink slime news sites is the advent of Artificial Intelligence. AI makes it easier and faster to generate news stories with little real news content. As Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania communications professor and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, told The Guardian, AI has created a sort of algorithmic arms race between false image generation and the ability to detect such fake content. "The capacity to create false images is very high, but also there is a capacity to detect the images that is emerging very rapidly. The question is, will it emerge rapidly with enough capacity?”
And, of course, social media plays an ever bigger part in the explosive proliferation of pink slime new sites. As The Guardian reported, cited above, two pink slime sites, "the Copper Courier and Up North News have accounts on all the major platforms and a total of about 150,000 followers on Facebook."
So much of our modern day media centric culture seems to be drifting, as if on autopilot, towards a dystopian future not unlike that portrayed in the George Orwell classic, 1984 —where Truth becomes just one more fungible commodity. In 1984, the main protagonist, Winston Smith, worked in the Records Department in the Ministry of Truth. In Chapter 4, we learn that Winston's job was to rewrite historical records so they would align with current party propaganda. Every kind of media, books, pamphlets and leaflets to posters, films, sound-tracks, cartoons and photographs, were in need of "rectification."
The quote below from Goodreads sums up well how fake news, often generated by AI, is driving our modern society into a thoughtless wasteland, where honest discussion is a quaint legacy of times past, and differences of opinion cannot be easily tolerated.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
Although I am sure the practitioners of pink slime journalism see things differently, one cannot but observe our society and culture slouching towards to an Orwellian future where all information is disinformation. As The Guardian quoted Matt Skibinski and cited above, each side is merely reacting to the perceived actions and slights of their political opponents.
Actors on both sides of the political spectrum feel “that what they are doing isn’t bad because all media is really biased against their side or that that they know actors on the other side are using these tactics and so they feel they need to.
Nevertheless, as Skibinski concludes, now that pink slime sites greatly outnumber legitimate local news sites, the proliferation of such a vast number of pink slime site has "definitely contributed to partisanship and the erosion of trust in media; it’s also a symptom of those things."
Gerald Reiff
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