• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, March 14, 2024

Gannett has been accused of having an ongoing business relationship with a company tied to “pink slime” publications.  

The firm is Advantage Informatics. It has been linked to Media Metrics, which Nieman Lab describes as “a sprawling network of over a thousand ‘pink slime’ publications — sites that profess to be local but have no local staff and do not disclose funding they’ve received from political sources.” 

When queried, a Gannett spokesperson provided this statement: "Some of our newsrooms work with Advantage Informatics for advertising supplements and advertorial content."  

Advantage Informatics shares an IP address with a number of Metric Media–affiliated websites,  says Pri Bengani, the Tow Computational Journalism Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, according to Nieman Lab.

“There are about 1,200 news websites operated by this convoluted network of networks,” Bengani told NiemanLab. “While there are distinct corporate entities, they share technical infrastructure, writers, stories, and executives.”

However, the exact nature of the editorial “slime” is not clear. Poynter writes that: “’Pink slime’” journalism is named after a meat byproduct and describes outlets that publish poor quality reports that appear to be local news.”

Nieman Lab describes these outlets as “sites that profess to be local but have no local staff and do not disclose funding they’ve received from political sources.” 

Advantage Informatics was founded by Brian Timpone, “a conservative businessman and former TV reporter based out of Chicago,” Nieman Lab writes. 

It still is unclear if this "pink-slime" journalism is a form of disinformation. 

Nieman Lab notes that the “work samples shown on Advantage Informatics’ site are generally inserts about topics like real estate and cars, or advertising supplements.”

Advantage Informatics lists two Gannett properties as clients, Austin American-Statesman and Arizona Central, according to NiemanLab. Also cited are Hearst-owned Houston Chronicle and San Diego Union-Tribune, a paper sold to Alden Global Capital by Patrick Soon-Shiong in 2023. However, Hearst says it has no record of such a relationship.