A newspaper delivered to 1 million Michigan mailboxes might be ‘pink slime’

A newspaper people didn’t subscribe to is showing up in mailboxes across Michigan.

The 9-page broadsheet called The Michigan Independent looks like any other local paper: headlines, stories, quotes, a crossword puzzle and even a recipe for lemon herb chicken. But it’s not clear where, exactly, the newspapers are coming from.

The Michigan Independent has no about page, no contact details and vague details about its ownership.

But behind the masthead is a murky, left-leaning news network publishing what researchers call “pink slime” to sway voters in battleground states.

“The tactic of them using old fashioned newspapers is them trying to establish themselves as local, trusted independent news sources,” said McKenzie Sadeghi, a researcher for NewsGuard, a rating system for news websites.

What is The Michigan Independent?

The newspaper’s editor-in-chief Joe Conason says The Michigan Independent was launched two years ago by a nonprofit organization called the American Independent Foundation. It publishes online and delivers print papers to nearly 1 million readers, according to Conason, making it the most widely circulated newspaper in Michigan.

The American Independent Foundation, which operates four state news outlets, describes its mission as “using journalism to educate the public, giving them information they need about local and federal issues.”

But it’s tricky to identify who owns the news network even though a trail of breadcrumbs point back to Democratic operatives, a super PAC and political motives.

“These kind of shadowy networks of political action committees, donors that are not transparent, political operatives that are behind these sites are trying to shape public opinion in an election year, where the stakes are already very high,” said Hannah Covington, senior director of education content at The News Literacy Project.

The American Independent this year is delivering newspapers in Montana, where there’s a contested senate race, and three battleground states that could determine the presidential election, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Many of the stories published under the American Independent umbrella, according to NewsGuard, “consistently advanced a pro-Democrat agenda.”

When NewsGuard analyzed five news websites during the midterm elections, researchers found dozens of articles that supported Democrats and criticized Republicans. And Media Bias Fact Check deemed The Michigan Independent a “questionable source” because its stories “favor the left and usually denigrate the right.”

“It’s really muddying the waters for people, especially in an election year,” Covington said.

Who’s behind the masthead?

The Michigan Independent appears to be tied to The American Independent, a progressive news site launched by David Brock in 2016. Brock, who has been described as “one of the most influential operatives in the Democratic party,” also founded a Democratic super PAC called American Bridge 21st Century and a liberal journalism organization called Media Matters.

Tax documents for the American Independent Foundation, a 501(c)(3), listed Bradley Beychock as a senior adviser in 2022. Beychock co-founded American Bridge and Media Matters.

The Michigan Independent website says it’s a project of American Independent Media, a separate 501(c)(4) organization. Researchers found this nonprofit was incorporated by Elias Law Group, a firm “committed to helping Democrats win, citizens vote, and progressives make change.”

Despite this, Conason says the American Independent Foundation is an independent organization.

“As its president and editor-in-chief, I oversee the editorial process at all of our publications including The Michigan Independent. I have no role with American Bridge whatsoever,” he said in an email.

Conason did not disclose who The Michigan Independent is being delivered to, but some Michiganders have posted on social media wondering how they can get taken off the list. A website link to unsubscribe seems to be broken.

It’s also hazy how The American Independent is funded.

Tax documents show two organizations linked to the newspaper operated on multimillion dollar budgets in recent years.

Annual revenue for the American Independent Foundation, whose donors are not disclosed, went from nearly $5 million to $26 million as its first newspapers appeared. And American Independent Media reported $19.5 million in revenue two years ago, latest tax filings show, with nearly $13.5 million being spent on “newspaper.”

“The issue is that readers aren’t getting the full context behind the sources of news and information that they’re reading,” Sadeghi said.

Is it pink slime journalism?

The lack of transparency and “a steady stream of partisan content aimed at influencing potential voters” is why NewsGuard considers The American Independent pink slime. The term, which refers to a meat filler that resembles real meat, describes partisan publications masquerading as local news.

“These websites are often paid for by political groups, and they’re often pushing partisan politics and advocacy stories that are making a policy, candidate or party look good,” Covington said.

Pink slime outlets are designed to look like neutral local news but they don’t disclose their ownership, funding or partisan slant.

“The biggest thing is transparency in how they’re portraying themselves and whether that’s being disclosed upfront to readers,” Sadeghi said.

They also tend to publish low-cost, low-quality journalism.

That’s where the Michigan Independent, which often features original, fact-based reporting, differs from other pink slime outlets. Conason says a team of highly qualified editors and reporters deliver “thorough, fact-checked, engaging stories that adhere to strict journalistic standards.”

“It is obviously wrong to compare our work with fake news operations – usually operated by far-right or foreign sponsors – that deploy fabricated bylines, counterfeit articles generated by artificial intelligence, and other deceptions to simulate news outlets,” Conason said.

A staff page shows a team of journalists but most of them, other than a former MLive journalist, don’t appear to be based in Michigan.

“A lot of these news outlets portray themselves as being on-the-ground reporters in a certain state or community when they’re operating out of DC or elsewhere and don’t have a full grasp on the local issues,” Sadeghi said.

The rise of pink slime

Pink slime outlets are not new – used by both the left and the right – but their numbers have exploded in recent years.

As of mid-April, NewsGuard identified 1,192 pink slime news outlets – nearly triple the number discovered at the end of 2019. The largest chunk comes from Metric Media, a right-leaning group that publishes 39 local websites in Michigan under names like Kalamazoo Times, Grand Rapids Reporter and Muskegon Sun.

“If we see these news networks prioritize certain political agendas over factual local news reporting, it can undermine people’s ability to make informed voting decisions, and it can also lead to a reduced focus on local issues in the community,” Sadeghi said.

These hyper-partisan news outlets are growing as traditional local newsrooms shrink. Broad swaths of the country now live in a news desert – communities that have limited access to reliable local news – while pink slime outlets have nearly outpaced the number of daily newspapers.

Covington says these news sites take advantage of a “dearth of information” because coverage on local issues has been hollowed out. She encourages people, especially during an election year, to be on a high alert: look for transparency in ownership, funding and journalism standards.

“It’s really up to readers to become news literate and take it upon themselves to figure out what they can and cannot trust,” she said.