
Hundreds of hyperpartisan sites are masquerading as local news - Balgair
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/07/hundreds-of-hyperpartisan-sites-are-masquerading-as-local-news-this-map-shows-if-theres-one-near-you/
======
mgraczyk
I spot checked a few of these and question the legitimacy of whatever method
they are using to select these sites. For example, the one nearest me (Austin)
states clearly on its landing page:

    
    
      Our mission is to build a first-of-its kind media ecosystem in Texas to help get the progressive message out – to give Democrats a media signal.
    

This is not a partisan site "masquarading as local news". It's a partisan site
openly stating that it is partisan. It doesn't pretend to be local news.

For another nearby one, I'm struggling to figure out why it is
"hyperpartisan":

[https://coloradovalleyguide.com/stories](https://coloradovalleyguide.com/stories)

I'm sure that many of the sites fit the "hyperpartisan masquerading as local
news" description, but whatever method they are using to classify seems fairly
inaccurate.

~~~
sebbecai
What makes these sites "hyperpartisan" is that they are directly funded by
candidates or PACs that support them.

My read: it's in their interest to seem balanced until the moment that it
matters--when covering candidates or policy.

~~~
altcognito
This is the answer in addition to the stories being more subtle in many cases
than implied by the term "Hyper-partisan". While "subtle" seems to imply less
damaging to the political system, much like many people complain the media
lies as being a large issue, this is pretty much the same thing except with a
super PAC behind it.

Someone else brought up Facebook -- that's the other thing -- these sites are
typically linked or used as sources during election season.

I think the amount of sway these sites has is small, but moderately effective.
In a day and age where 70k votes can swing an election in a country of
millions, it is just one of many tools in the bucket of lobbyists and
political parties.

------
_bxg1
I feel so powerless against this terrifying trend. All I can do is try to
insulate myself from misinformation and inflammatory content - which is hard
enough - but I have close relatives who positively eat it up without even
thinking twice about taking a critical eye. I've tried engaging them on it and
encouraging healthy skepticism, and it's been entirely fruitless. The average
person seems to have zero capacity to reflect on and be aware of their own
biases and emotions and how those affect their judgement and are affected by
their environment.

I'm just so frustrated and exhausted. It's hard not to lose all hope for
humanity in times like these.

~~~
jakeogh
How do you insulate yourself while engaging them? I have a similar problem,
close people who are imho thoroughly insulated, and that's the real issue; the
insulation. It's not an accident or organic, it's induced. The information
sources they trust relentlessly remind them to be insulated.

It's rather advanced propaganda, almost completely done with insinuation and
emotional cues based on lies previously anchored.

Skipping the pre-chewed information sources by going directly to the sources
that their trusted sources often mention but do not link to causes an
emotional reaction.

------
thoughtmonk
This study seems poorly done. For example, I looked in the Orlando area, since
it's a purple area: while they are different URLs, they are all the same site.
The articles all seem to be bot generated content, with no clearly partisan
content. It just seems like a click farm/url camping scheme, but that counts
as 13 of the data points. But they are considered right leaning, because I
assume because the owner is right leaning, but it doesn't really show a hyper-
partisan website (or 13, in this case, in a purple area). I can't say anything
about the rest of the data, but those data points alone seem to point to some
issues with this article and dataset.

------
smsm42
> hyperpartisan sites are masquerading as local news.

> while left-leaning sites prioritize statewide reporting, right-leaning sites
> are more focused on local reporting,

So they actually _are_ local news, not "masquerading" as such. Way to
sensationalize simple "people with political opinions do local news
reporting".

~~~
ianleeclark
The reason they're called hyperpartisan

> often funded and operated by government officials, political candidates,
> PACs, and political party operatives

They call it masquerading due to

> We suspect many of the local sites are not based in or actually operating
> within the communities they serve. Timpone had previously operated “local”
> news sites using content produced by writers based in the Philippines and
> using fake bylines

Draw your own conclusions, but please read past the summary.

~~~
smsm42
I did read past the summary, and I did draw the conclusion that the only
evidence they have is what you quoted - that one of the persons involved also
operated an overseas freelance journalist network. Even if it were true - for
which there's zero evidence so far - that would only mean the writers of the
sites aren't located in the places they are writing about. I don't see any
reason to present it as nefarious "masquerading" \- you can write about state
court cases in Sacramento without living next door to the court. If they still
report local news, there's no reason to call them "masquerading".

As for scary "hyperpartisan", what I see is that some right-leaning
organizations (and some left-leaning ones) own some news sites. There's not
even evidence that it influences the editorial policy in any way (that very
well may happen, but the authors don't even bother to provide any evidence),
let alone so much that it warrants the "hyper" designation. Also, conflating
"funded by" and "operated" adds another level of confusion. If I pay for NYT
subscription, it's "funded by" me now. Does it mean I determine NYT editorial
policy? Obviously, it is important to see the structure of the funding, and
small one-time donation is not the same as whole ownership and operation, and
the ownership of right-leaning think tank (e.g. Cato Institute) is not the
same as ownership by a political candidate. It comes out as if any news ite
owned by someone who has publicized political views is now "hyperpartisan".

So my conclusion is sensationalism based on thinnest of evidence and a lot of
murky innuendo.

------
gaze
I really hate this title, because it subtly implies some semi-balanced
distribution of hyper-left and hyper-right sites, when the article says
"Bengani identified five organizations operating these networks, all with
conservative political ties."

Why not just say "Hundreds of hyper-conservative sites masquerading as local
news?"

~~~
jjeaff
Maybe by not calling it out, it will convince more conservatives to read it
before dismissing it.

~~~
smsm42
I mean, sure, inserting such objective terms as "hyperpartisan" and
"masquerading" surely advertises it as objective, detached, respectful
treatment of the matter, not some sensationalist clickbait. You don't have to
actually click to see whether the masquerading hyperpartisans are right next
to your home. If you don't care about the troubling reality of people that may
have views different from you masquerading as reporters by reporting local
news - RIGHT THERE NEAR YOU!, of course. If you're that dense, then well,
don't click.

------
nabilhat
Related, worth a mention:
[https://github.com/MassMove/AttackVectors](https://github.com/MassMove/AttackVectors)

I'm not promoting the products of the work as it sits, I'm just happy to see
accessible open source propaganda identification efforts. We can't count on
service providers who've accommodated low friction access to globally
distributed propaganda as part of their business model to respond adequately
or appropriately.

------
josefresco
The 5 Conservative sites in Maine (a battleground state) are identical local
business directories with no apparent news or editorial content. All have
footer links to [https://locallabs.com](https://locallabs.com) The 1 liberal
site was full of content, it looked like a well run site, albeit with an
obvious "bend".

The Conservative sites could be placeholders, abandoned attempts, or the
content could be hidden (I didn't dig that deep)

------
strogonoff
Also touching on Timpone and the LGIS bogus news propaganda engine: the
“Reopen” domain surge thread
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22928292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22928292)).

------
ARandomerDude
Several of these are dubiously classified. For example, this random one I've
never heard of yielded nothing I could find (in 3 minutes) with any political
affiliation.

[https://industrytxguide.com/stories](https://industrytxguide.com/stories)

------
scottlocklin
Well, this is a fake news article if I ever saw one. I went and looked at my
region. In fact what we actually have are conservative and left leaning local
news and content aggregator sites. I don't see what the problem is here; I've
used both, and it's not like they're "masquerading" as anything but left and
right leaning local news and content aggregation sites. They're no more
"hyperpartisan" than society at large is, and the paranoid characterization of
them as something sinister is in itself more disturbing than the content on
them.

Having local news of any kind is nice! It would be nice if they were extremely
non partisan, but then, nothing else is anyway, so I'll take what I can get.

~~~
AaronFriel
If I am reading your comment correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong -

This article is fake news because you don't agree with their analysis, not
because there's something factually inaccurate?

 _and_

You welcome the creation of "local news" sites which are overwhelmingly
partisan, typically obscure their ownership and sourcing of stories, do not
actually hire local journalists, and some have been shown to be fronts for
purely partisan organizations or even disinformation campaigns by foreign
powers designed to divide Americans[1].

 _and_

You believe these outlets are in fact preferable to genuine local news
organizations - public radio, local papers, broadcast television (Sinclair and
some other national operations aside) - or even nothing at all?

I think given the chance, I'd take nothing at all over a concerted
disinformation campaign whose purpose is to overwhelm my availability
heuristic and yours as well.

[1] - [https://www.npr.org/2018/07/12/628085238/russian-
influence-c...](https://www.npr.org/2018/07/12/628085238/russian-influence-
campaign-sought-to-exploit-americans-trust-in-local-news)

~~~
scottlocklin
The article is, as is usual for "nitwit 'expert' analyzing something happening
online" is basically hyperventillating clickbait insinuating hysteria rather
than anything remotely resembling analysis.

I told you what I did: I went to the local news sites on the map for my
locality, and clicked on one of each. They were fine! I've used them both
before when they turned up in organic search, and found them helpful for local
news and events. It's insanely obvious they're partisan; you'd need a lobotomy
to not notice this. I would rather that they weren't so partisan, but
meanwhile, it's nice to know about local events and get some local news. I
encourage you to do the same rather than uncritically regurgitating the
nonsensical "news" -or, worse, parsing it into the insane conspiracy theory
that FSB is behind the Maine Beacon's article on youth detention centers[1] or
the NH Business daily's article on Don Bettencourt's political positions[2].
Your "interpretation" of my above statement is ... interesting, and rather
ungenerous to say the least.

[1] [https://mainebeacon.com/advocates-renew-call-to-empty-
long-c...](https://mainebeacon.com/advocates-renew-call-to-empty-long-creek-
after-16-year-old-contracts-covid/)

[2] [https://nhbusinessdaily.com/stories/539820493-donald-
bettenc...](https://nhbusinessdaily.com/stories/539820493-donald-bettencourt-
pledges-to-support-congressional-term-limits)

~~~
godelski
> It's insanely obvious they're partisan;

So it is fake news... because... it is what they said it was? They are
claiming that there are hyper-partisan news sites and you seem to be agreeing.
I'm not sure I follow how that makes it fake news.

------
rukittenme
I live in Chicago so I wanted to see what the hyper-partisan conservative site
was for my area. Turns out its the Cook County Record[1]. I obviously haven't
done an in depth analysis but it looks conservative in its selection of topics
but not "hyper" conservative in that its making aggressive, conservative
arguments within the body of the piece. It seems like honest reporting with a
right-leaning topic selection.

Personally, I wouldn't read it but its no different (and maybe slightly more
civil in its content) than the news I see in my Apple news feed from NBC or
the Chicago Tribune.

1\. [https://cookcountyrecord.com/](https://cookcountyrecord.com/)

~~~
wwright
The article seems to state that the sites it lists have specific financial
ties to politicians and PACs; civility of writing doesn't seem to be a
criterion.

------
jccalhoun
This is really interesting. I looked at where I lived and there weren't any
but in neighboring Illinois there are a number that are all ran by the same
group. I looked at two of them and they seem to basically be churning out the
same types of stories: republican candidates good, democratic candidates bad.
There was no analysis or insight into the stories. They are basically content
farms churning out stories in the hope that they will influence elections. The
one liberal site I saw was one I had heard of and while it may have
progressive politics, it covers the state and has actual current event
coverage rather than being a cheerleader for the democratic party.

------
godmode2019
Sometimes I wonder at hn ability to critically process information.

Take a look at the map of 2016 election by count.

[https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcRqzU...](https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcRqzUZyUVEyCJAfQ-7Z14KRQ-
PuGL1oNl4Ucw&usqp=CAU)

Seems like left leaning news sites would only survive if they were focused on
the city / state level.

------
spaetzleesser
I never understand the mindset of these hyperpartisan people . What are they
trying to achieve? They seem to forget that politics is about making things
better and not just about “winning”. It would be much better if they got into
sports and be hyperpartisan there where the result doesn’t really matter.

~~~
Nasrudith
To be frank sadly many people are just plain ego driven as it is part of their
identity and want to be "right" over any actual truthfulness or results. It is
unfortunately a full spectrum tendency and not limited bipartisan and not
limited to extremes although they may manifest differently and there are cases
beyond their "stereotype".

The further left are infamous for being fractious over increasingly petty and
pedantic differences and purity spirals to try to self differentiate (famously
satirized in the Life of Brian with the Judean People's Front and variants),
the far right or authoritarians in general staying loyal to some "strong"
cause even when it is obviously incredibly bad for them to the point where
"slugs for salt" is an old joke, and moderates accept any old bullshit if it
fits in their norms and justifies themselves in some way even if it is utterly
abhorrent and proven morally wrong and foolish later like the community's
shameful mistreatment of Ryan White during AIDS panics along with breathlessly
accepting any ole bullshit if it "doesn't rock thr boat". Nowhere and nobody
is immune to it because we are all human.

------
kyleblarson
Reid Hoffman is also getting into the mix:
[https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/newsroom-pac-
libera...](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/newsroom-pac-liberal-info-
wars-356800)

------
jakeogh
How astroturf works (2016):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HugpdfYPkuY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HugpdfYPkuY)

------
VikingCoder
1) Consume reputable news sources.

2) Rewrite hundreds of articles into the hyperpartisan version, with the worst
click bait titles.

3) Train a deep learning model how to do it.

4) Stand up the beast.

5) Put ads on your website, to pay for it.

This is how you hijack Democracy by using the First Amendment, Technology, and
Capitalism.

------
ilaksh
What about all of the popular hyper-partisan news organizations masquerading
as unbiased news? Such as Fox, MSNBC, pretty much everything that is popular.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
"First, to the extent that these types of sites continue to proliferate and
possibly replace traditional local news organizations, the partisanship that
has come to characterize our national-level journalism could increasingly
characterize our local journalism, potentially amplifying the political
polarization that is already affecting the country, and potentially
undermining effective self-governance at the local level. In future research,
we hope to explore whether these partisan sites produce misinformation more
often than their more traditional counterparts. If that is the case, it could
have significant implications for well-informed local self-governance."

They are aware of that, but are also aware that local news is different and
could exasperate things in terms of misinformation.

------
marsdepinski
CNN, NBC and Fox also masquerade as news.

------
JSavageOne
Not really any difference with Fox News.

------
blhack
I just looked at all of the sites around my city of Phoenix. I'm not sure what
sort of double speak definition of "hyperpartisan" they are using here is. If
anything this seems refreshingly matter-of-fact, and it's probably all just
being generated by a script of some kind. It looks like stories about some
local races, some matter-of-fact old story about Trump traveling to a
honeywell plant in Arizona. None of this is particularly interesting, and it
seems pretty obvious that this is all being generated by the same news
org/upstart (all the Phoenix-sites seem roughly the same, and are probably all
just getting served out of a central CMS)

Compare this to the top story in the politics section of the Paper of Record,
The NYT:

>The QAnon Candidates Are Here. Trump Has Paved Their Way.

Uh huh. THIS is some major record of events they need to document?
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/qanon-
politic...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/qanon-politicians-
candidates.html)

------
m0zg
I'll tell you more: a lot of hyperpartisan sites and even TV channels are
masquerading as national news.

------
jscipione
"Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their
own personal bias and agenda to control 'exactly what people think' ...This is
extremely dangerous to our democracy."

------
xenospn
I'm sure there's a reason - there's apparently a lot of money to be made
pandering to that base. Someone, somewhere, is making lots of money selling
something to these people.

