In August of 2020, the New York Times reported on a network of nearly 1,300 websites which the Times stated were filling a void left by vanishing local newspapers across the country. The Times reported that “many of their stories are ordered up by conservative political groups and corporate P.R. firms.” Almost all of these “local papers” in California are still in existence today.
For example, the following headline and photo appeared in the South Bay Leader South Bay Leader on August 5, 2024:
The same headline, changing out Representative Lieu’s name and photo with the local Democratic Congressperson’s name and photo, appeared in several “local” digital papers on August 5, 2024.
There are still almost 80 “local” news sites in California that are actually part of a propaganda network driven by Republican operatives, corporate P.R. firms and dark money. As the Times, the Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center, the Guardian, Michigan Daily, and the Lansing State Journal independently reported, the content on these sites is largely determined by political operatives who are clients of this “pay-for-play” network. As The Wrap reported, this network pays freelance writers to promote Republican candidates, focus on conservative topics, and attack Democratic opponents, “often without journalistic due diligence, transparency and fairness.” The remainder of the content was found to be “algorithmically generated using publicly available data sets or by repurposing stories from legitimate sources.” For example, on August 5, 2024, the headlines in several of these “local papers,” each ran an article with the Democratic Representative from that particular district pictured and the headline, “U.S. Rep. (X) votes to make it easier for illegal aliens to vote in federal elections.”
Here are the papers still published in California that were found by the Times to be “pay to play”:
Sources:
These California 'Local Papers' Are Part of a Shadowy Conservative Pay-for-Play Network - TheWrap