The Consumption of Pink Slime Journalism: Who, What, When, Where, and Why?

Pink slime journalism refers to organizations that masquerade as local news outlets, often publishing hyperpartisan and inflammatory articles that serve special interests. While past research has illuminated the production of pink slime journalism (e.g., identifying pink slime outlets, documenting their practices) and detailed pink slime’s potential impacts, virtually no work to date has reported the consumption of pink slime journalism. In this paper, we combine web browsing behavior from a nationally representative sample of American adults collected during the 2020 election (N = 1,238; 21 million website visits) with a database of websites of pink slime outlets (1,627 outlets and 132,237 distinct articles) to document Americans’ consumption of pink slime journalism. Our analysis reveals that just 3.7% of Americans were exposed to pink slime in the months surrounding the 2020 election, and exposure among those exposed was limited. Pink slime consumption differed considerably from the consumption patterns of both misinformation and local news websites, two conceptually related content types. We also find mismatch between production and consumption, with the topics of produced and promoted pink slime articles differing greatly from the topics of those actually consumed. Despite ample speculation, those residing in news deserts were not more likely to consume pink slime. We discuss new questions posed by these pink slime exposure dynamics and how our findings contribute to journalism and communication research more broadly.