Nearly 40 websites that look like local news outlets feature largely identical articles with a distinctly conservative tone.
Despite working for Michigan State University outside Lansing, Mich., Matt Grossmann had never heard of The Lansing Sun until he stumbled across the website on his Facebook news feed earlier this month.
So when he clicked on an advertised article about Michigan’s roads spending that criticized the state’s Democratic governor, he was curious to know whether The Sun was a new outlet serving the state capital’s 118,000 residents and political leaders.
What he discovered instead was a network of nearly 40 websites that appear to be local news outlets from throughout Michigan but offer largely identical articles about taxes, alleged voter fraud and education costs with a distinctly conservative political tone. Websites with names like The Grand Rapids Reporter, The Kalamazoo Times and Waterford Today include little local news beyond gas prices and prewritten releases about library events.
“I don’t know if fake but local-sounding news outlets makes things more credible, but they certainly seem to think so because they’ve gone to the effort to do that,” said Mr. Grossmann, the director of the university’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.
News of the websites and their political and business links was first reported by The Lansing State Journal on Sunday.
At a time when social media has become a key gateway for sharing information, the collection of websites underscores how political messaging can be deftly repackaged to look like the fading local journalism that readers were used to trusting.
Some of the highlighted articles appeared explicitly designed to appeal to conservative readers. The Lansing Sun’s homepage devoted space to Michigan Republicans who were “pushing forward with efforts to support President Donald Trump in the wake of the impeachment inquiry” and a profane chant from Representative Rashida Tlaib at a pro-impeachment rally.
Conservative media companies like Sinclair Broadcast Group have become known for buying up local outlets they rebrand with ideologically aligned content. But Mr. Grossmann noted that the minimal advertising on the Michigan websites — along with their promotional push on Facebook — may signal that profits are not the main goal.
“It doesn’t look like a business enterprise,” he said. “News is struggling in general. It looks more like they’re trying to influence the political debate by targeting people who are already interested in that content.”
According to the “About Us” section on the websites, they are published by Metric Media, a company that says it was founded to fill “the growing news void in local and community news after years of steady disinvestment in local reporting by legacy media.”
Metric Media’s chief executive is Bradley Cameron, according to his online biography, which says he advises private equity investors in Silicon Valley, has been retained by conservative groups and served as senior adviser in the 1990s to the “Republican strategy leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Many if not all of the sites were registered on June 30 and updated on the same day in August, according to online domain records. The sites say they are operated by Locality Labs, a Delaware company affiliated with networks of local websites in Maryland and Illinois, according to The Lansing State Journal.
Brian Timpone, the head of Locality Labs, is a Republican activist in Illinois who has founded several media companies that have produced networks of local websites and newspapers with content that reflects staunch conservative views. Mr. Timpone ran a company that created local news stories for The Chicago Tribune, which ended its relationship with him in 2012 after it learned of complaints about faked bylines and plagiarism, according to The Tribune.
Mr. Cameron, Metric Media and Locality Labs could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday night.
On its website, Metric Media describes its reporting philosophy as providing “objective, data-driven information without inserting personal or political viewpoints and biases.” The company wrote that it plans to open thousands of similar sites nationwide.
Dan Levin covers American youth for the National Desk. He was a foreign correspondent covering Canada from 2016 until 2018. From 2008 to 2015, Mr. Levin was based in Beijing, where he reported on human rights, politics and culture in China and Asia. @globaldan
