'Pink slime' journalism
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Publishing as (fill-in-the-state-name) Catholic Tribune
Who’s Mailing the Catholic Tribune? It’s Not the Church, It’s Partisan Media.
ProPublica has traced these mass-mailed newspapers to a “pink slime” network known for misinformation and its financial ties to right-wing super PACs and billionaires.
One by one, Catholic dioceses in key presidential swing states are putting out unusual statements: Newspapers whose titles include the word Catholic that are showing up in people’s mailboxes aren’t what they seem and aren’t connected to the church.
With a classic typeface and traditional newspaper design, the mass-mailed Catholic Tribune newspapers carry signposts of legitimacy. But most of the articles in the papers are inflammatory and overtly partisan, focusing on culture-war issues that resonate with conservative voters.
A headline in the Wisconsin Catholic Tribune, and repurposed in other states’ versions, provocatively asks, “How many ‘sex change’ mutilation surgeries occurred on Wisconsin kids?” Another: “Haitian illegal aliens in America: What are Harris supporters saying?”
At the same time, they undermine Vice President Kamala Harris and prop up former President Donald Trump by, for instance, reminding readers on the front page that anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — whose father and uncle were among the most prominent Catholics in the country — has endorsed Trump.
Dioceses and parishes in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin have issued warnings about the publications. “It gives the impression that the Diocese of Grand Rapids or the Catholic Church is behind this newspaper,” diocese spokesperson Annalise Laumeyer said of the Michigan Catholic Tribune.
She reached out to local media to flag parishioners so they won’t be misled. And because of the clearly partisan content, non-Catholics might be left with an impression of the Catholic Church that is “worrisome,” she said.
The papers, which have also appeared in Arizona and Pennsylvania, are what academics call “pink slime.” The name comes from a filler in processed meat — or a product that is not entirely what it seems.
https://www.propublica.org/article/church-no-affiliation-catholic-tribune-metric-media
The Columbia Journalism Review did a deep dive on these organizations in 2019. First of four part series:
