Our 'fake news' crisis is only going to get worse

The New York Times reports on a network of 1,300 local news sites that are funded by Republican operatives and P.R. firms.

One of my biggest frustrations with conventional beltway coverage of the 2020 election is the spectacularly out-of-date notion that voters are operating off the same set of facts. For example, it must be hard for Joe Biden’s campaign to convince MAGA diehards that Trump has botched our Covid recovery, if they think the virus was created inside of a laboratory by Bill Gates, in between his slurps of child’s blood.

None of this will end if Donald Trump loses the election, and or even if he somehow agrees to leave office. The disinformation ecosystem is far too prevalent and lucrative. There’s also the fact that real news outlets are dying, leaving room for media vultures to swoop in and monetize their own version of alternative facts.

One of those people is Brian Timpone, who owns 1,300 local news sites that are funded by Republican groups and P.R. firms. The New York Times recently exposed Timpone’s company, and outlined the pay-for-publish operation. Essentially, clients order up articles they would like to see written, and the stories get assigned to freelance reporters. These freelancers are not Russian intelligence operatives or admirers of James O’ Keefe. They are regular journalists, just looking to take on as much work as they can.

One of those reporters is Angela Underwood, who authored an article for a website called “Maine Business Daily” calling out Democratic senatorial candidate Sara Gideon for her hypocrisy about accepting dark money. Underwood was instructed to seek comment from Sen. Susan Collins, but not the Gideon campaign.

The article was a glorified press release for Collins, who’s fighting to hold onto her seat.

“You say you’re never going to dance with the devil like that; you just judge people for doing it,” Underwood told the NYT. “And then you’re just in the exact same position.”

These websites do not publish deranged conspiracy theories about SEAL Team Six killing Osama Bin Laden’s body double or even Hunter Biden’s emails. Their influence is more subtle, and as a result, more frightening. The articles appear legitimate, but many are slanted in one direction, or push one particular candidate. A Republican candidate for the U.S. House in Illinois, Jeanne Ives, paid Timpone’s companies $55,000 over three years, and has received overwhelmingly positive coverage on the Illinois sites.

Of course, she claims there’s no connection between the two events.

As of October 2018, about 1,300 communities in the U.S. are news deserts, meaning they’ve lost local news coverage entirely. National outlets and TV news are the only options, along with Facebook. Unsurprisingly, Timpone’s network of sites is big on Facebook. Some of the most popular stories receive tens of thousands of shares, the NYT reports.

The coronavirus pandemic has only further ravaged the reeling journalism industry. More than 11,000 newsroom jobs were lost in the first six months of 2020. That’s nearly as many as were lost in all of 2009.

Since 2004, we’ve lost roughly 25 percent of newspapers across the U.S.

Going forward, there will be more news deserts and journalists out of work. The landscape will be set for bad actors to swoop in and disperse propaganda. While that’s been the case at Fox News for decades, it’s far more nefarious when it happens on the local level. Local outlets for small towns are historically apolitical and trusted information sources. Propaganda in the local weekly can seep through a community like lead in the water.

It’s already been happening on the TV side. Sinclair, the pro-Trump company that used to force all 193 of its local stations to carry Boris Epshteyn's weekly commentaries, will soon be available in 72 percent of U.S. homes. Sinclair political anchor Eric Bolling of Fox News infamy recently conducted an interview with Rudy Giuliani about Biden’s supposed declining health, which will air on its stations. “Stay tuned for weather, traffic, and Biden battling dementia.”

So far, Timpone’s fake outlets have largely stayed away from contentious national issues. But they undoubtedly serve the interests of one side. Last spring, websites called DC Business Daily and NY Business Daily published a string of articles at the direction of hotel magnate and major Trump donor Monty Bennett, lobbying on behalf of his businesses and against creditors.

With Timpone’s model, dark money can penetrate news media as successfully as its penetrated politics. And it may not take long, either, considering there isn’t much money to go around these days.

If only our fake news problems ended with Russian hackers making memes. But they are far reaching, and the worst abuses are happening right here in the U.S.