'Alarming': Conservative caught pumping dark money into swing states via surprising source

Conservatives have been caught pumping dark money into key swing states that political experts are calling "alarming" — via a source commonly called "pink slime."

Dark-money funded websites designed to look like nonpartisan news outlets have choked out legitimate journalism sources in former President Donald Trump's primary battle grounds in the upcoming presidential election, Axios reported Tuesday.

"Many of those sites are targeted to swing states — a clear sign that they're designed to influence politics," writes Sara Fischer.

The media watchdog group NewsGuard identified 1,265 websites masquerading as legitimate local news sites — which numbered just 1,213 in 2023, Axios reports.

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About 45 percent of the sites target swing states, most frequently Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Georgia, Axios reports.

"These types of websites are often referred to as 'pink slime,' a term that originated in the ground beef industry," Fischer notes. "The term has been used for more than a decade to describe politically motivated websites masquerading as independent local news outlets."

While the eight largest organizations running these pink slime mills are split down the middle — four conservative and four progressive — the majority are backed by the conservative network Metric Media, Axios reports.

A New York Times report has tied the network to Brian Timpone, a conservative businessman and former journalist exposed by This American Life for selling questionable content to major newspapers.

"Most of the Metric Media sites don't include much information about the sites' funders or management," Axios reports. "The stories typically lack bylines and many are outdated or marked as 'press release submissions.'"

Steven Waldman, co-founder of the journalism group Report For America, and former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) both used the same word to describe Axios' report: "Alarming."