A Nation Poisoned by “Pink Slime” Media

Our news information ecosystem has been corrupted in so many ways. I have been studying this problem for years, but the scale of misinformation delivered during the 2024 campaign has shocked even me.

Via Wikipedia ...

Pink-slime journalism is a practice in which American news outlets, or fake partisan operations masquerading as such, publish poor-quality news reports which appear to be local news. The reports are either computer-generated or written by poorly-paid outsourced writers, sometimes using pen names.

The term "pink-slime journalism" was coined by journalist Ryan Smith in 2012. A related term, "news mirage", was coined in 2024 by journalists Miranda Green and David Folkenflik to refer to websites that "look like news, but in truth [serve as] mouthpieces" for corporations or advocacy groups with a non-journalistic agenda.

Let's get right to the weblog today.

Here is the critical thread from Miranda Green of Floodlight News about the enormity of this "pink slime media" problem.

Many of these newspapers used to be authentic news sources with trusted brands.

Here is one of the examples she cited ...

The pink slime are a huge problem, but not as big of a problem as the misinformation that takes place in trusted right-wing news outlets.

And this point from that column is so important.

The answer is the right-wing media. Today, the right-wing media—Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more—sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win.

Let me say that again, in case it got lost: Today, the right-wing media sets the news agenda in this country. Not The New York Times. Not The Washington Post (which bent over backwards to exert no influence when Jeff Bezos pulled the paper’s Harris endorsement). Not CBS, NBC, and ABC. The agenda is set by all the outlets I listed in the above paragraph. Even the mighty New York Times follows in its wake, aping the tone they set disturbingly often.

If you read me regularly, you know that I’ve written this before, but I’m going to keep writing it until people—specifically, rich liberals, who are the only people in the world who have the power to do something about this state of affairs—take some action.

Michael Tomasky

Here is Kate Riga from Talking Points Memo, who has a similar argument.

Of course, this is not a new problem; it is just one that has been massively scaled up.

Here is another essential read about the state of our essential fourth estate.

And one about the future of our essential fourth estate in MAGA 2.0.

So yeah, our essential fourth estate is already badly damaged. But this is an important letter to all of you young journalists. Your work is more important now than ever before.

And what does a broken fourth estate deliver? A broken nation full of unchecked corruption.

We have just a couple of months until we are all living in a new reality. And guess what we are going to get built in this reality! Concentration camps!

Yes, concentration camps in the United States of America.

Why? Because the private prison industry is going to make billions by MAKING FREE LABOR GREAT AGAIN. Fun times.

And, of course, it isn't just the rapacious assholes from the private prison industry that have seen their wealth and their stocks soar since Tuesday.

It is a great time to be a rapacious asshole in the USA. And we all can be part of this booming market! Millions can be made! Scratch that; billions can be made! All we have to do is smash our inner moral compasses with a hammer!

What a time to be alive.

For fucks sake.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

I just finished George and Peter's brilliant but heartbreaking book. This is the best thing I have read about how we got to where we are. And if you are wondering about who influences my "radical" art, George Monbiot is one of my favorite professors.

FREE BOOK ALERT!

I just downloaded this one for free. I've always been a big fan of Rebbeca Solnit, but I haven't read this one yet.

But yeah, I could definitely use some hope right now.

To close, the best thing I read today is about patriots doing essential work on the investment and stewardship side of my handy economic scale.

FYI, I do not embed posts from Elon's eXit app, only screenshots. But please support the work of the patriots I am trying to amplify who are still bravely posting in that hellscape.

Stay strong, my friends.