Inside the rise of Maine’s partisan ‘pink slime’ news pages
Scholars call it “pink slime journalism.”
The term refers to blogs or social media pages that present themselves as local and independent news sources but have clear political slants and do little, if any, original reporting. The term, coined in 2012 by journalist Ryan Smith, comes from the rosy-hued ooze used as filler in low-quality processed meats.
The Portland Press Herald identified three recently created sites in Maine with the hallmarks of pink slime on both sides of the partisan aisle: Maine Newsroom, the Portland Post and Maine Policy Updates. The sites differ in partisan orientation, source of funding, and the extent to which any editors or authors can be identified.
Each page presents itself as a reputable local news source while posting steady streams of politicized news. They are all run by either super PACs, nationwide dark money groups or partisan operatives, all obscuring their roles in swaying Maine’s media ecosystem for political benefit.
“There’s a spectrum of deception involved,” said Michael Socolow, professor of journalism and media ethics at the University of Maine. “The decline of local news has created a void, which has encouraged political operatives to step in and pretend they’re delivering local news.”
Politicized news is not new in Maine. The right-wing Maine Policy Institute in 2011 founded the conservative Maine Wire, which has ballooned its following and content output in recent years. The Maine Beacon, a publication created by the left-wing Maine People’s Alliance, has the stated goal of promoting “a progressive worldview.”
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But unlike Maine’s “pink slime” outlets, both the Wire and the Beacon write original stories. They have real people with their names attached to their work. And both outlets disclose the political organizations supporting them.
Still, pink slime is not new to Maine.
Socolow is also a board member of the Maine Press Association, a group founded to “foster high ethical standards” among the state’s news publications. He recalled in 2017, when a website called the Maine Examiner began posting anonymous, inflammatory articles about Democrats and liberal policies.
The Examiner became infamous after disrupting Lewiston’s mayoral race with an explosive, misleading story, leaking emails by a Democratic candidate who later lost by a slim margin.
The site’s founder and lone writer, the Sun Journal uncovered, was Jason Savage: executive director of the Maine Republican party.
“But it’s become much more sophisticated since the days of the Maine Examiner,” Socolow said.
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The accounts spawned over the last two years indicate a broader shift in how people in Maine and across the country consume information — and how interest groups and political operatives can sway new media for their benefit.
One of the pages was made with the apparent purpose of swaying Maine’s Senate race, which has national significance for both the Democratic and Republican parties. Another was made as part of a nationwide effort to create misleading news pages in battleground states across the country.
None attach names or bylines to their work. Maine Newsroom is the only page with a face attached — a longtime Democratic campaign operative and media consultant.
“People get a lot of their news these days from social media, from influencers,” said Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University. “Maine is fortunate enough to have a decent local news environment, but people are always looking for alternatives. They’re being told that they can’t trust anything in the mainstream.”
THE PORTLAND POST
The Portland Post looks and feels familiar. Its logo is remarkably similar to the Press Herald’s masthead. The Post’s social media pages post newsy graphics and videos not unlike what the state’s newspapers and TV stations share on a regular basis.
But the Post does not appear to do original reporting. The page is part of a conservative dark money group’s effort to prop up a right-wing media ecosystem in battleground states across the country.
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The Post was founded in March by the California-based Lincoln Media Foundation, a wing of the Lincoln Club of Orange County — which describes itself as an anonymous conservative donor network.
The Lincoln Media Foundation was incorporated in 2021 with the stated goal of becoming the “new, aggressive enemy” of the “corrupt media establishment.” The foundation’s funding has drastically increased, tax filings show, with revenue rising from less than $500,000 in 2021 to nearly $4 million in 2024, the most recent year with data available.
Alex Avetoom, Lincoln Media Foundation’s CEO, said in a February fundraising email that the organization is scaling up operations “in the states and communities where information directly shapes the direction of the country.”
The Lincoln Media Foundation’s conservative mission comes through in the Portland Post’s content.
Its Facebook and Instagram pages contain videos from the conservative Maine Wire shared in their entirety. Articles on the Post’s website have urged Republicans to tighten voter ID restrictions and admonished “soft-on-crime” approaches to youth violence in Lewiston.
None of the articles on the Post’s website have bylines attached to them. They rarely cite sources. When they do, they’re almost always conservative: The Heritage Foundation, the Republican National Committee, and right-wing social media accounts.
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The Lincoln Media Foundation’s other pages function similarly. Each was made in the months before a significant election, posting a blend of seemingly AI-generated summaries of news articles, vertical videos from conservative influencers and graphics with flashy, rightward-leaning headlines.
Christine Sowa Lepird, a media researcher at Johns Hopkins University, said political actors are increasingly inundating voters with pink slime news. Those pages are “planting seeds for future elections,” she said.
“In some ways, they’re almost like sleeper cells,” Lepird added. “They activate all of a sudden when your community becomes of importance to national politics.”
Neither Avetoom, the Portland Post nor the Lincoln Media Foundation responded to questions about the pages’ content, political lean or use of artificial intelligence. Nor did they return a wider request for comment on this story.
MAINE NEWSROOM
Ian Koski, who is originally from New York, has opened nearly all of his more than 650 social media videos with the same two words: “Hey, Mainers.”
Koski, 46, began @MaineNewsroom last year as a self-described “independent online journalism” project. Koski posts several videos a day across virtually every platform, reading screenshots of local outlets’ stories and asking viewers to “like and follow for more Maine news.”
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The one-man newsroom has accrued tens of thousands of followers.
Koski’s name is not listed anywhere in videos or blog posts. The Press Herald was able to identify him through business filings and online metadata. Koski‘s website says he maintains anonymity to “prevent unlawful partisan attacks.”
But looking through Koski’s LinkedIn profile contradicts his claims that Maine Newsroom is an independent journalism project. He has worked for decades as a Democratic campaign operative and media consultant.
On Maine Newsroom’s homepage, Koski notes the project is not his full-time job. That, according to his resume, is running his own political communications firm. He founded Quorum Creative in 2018 with the purpose of promoting “Democratic political campaigns, progressive causes, and nonpolitical organizations,” according to its website.
Koski previously spent decades working as a creative director and media strategist with three large communications firms that all work almost exclusively with Democratic campaigns, including a firm Koski founded in 2004 “to work with organizations and Democratic campaigns,” according to his LinkedIn page.
Koski later pivoted to electoral politics, working as a media consultant for former President Barack Obama and Delaware Sen. Chris Coons. As recently as 2024, Koski was working as a campaign director for several Democratic candidates in Utah, according to his resume.
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“He’s clearly trying to present himself as a disinterested, neutral conveyor of facts. Yet his facts are clearly framed in a way that will help Democrats and attack Republicans,” said Socolow, the UMaine journalism professor.
In an email, Koski said he does not offer personal opinions in his videos. But Maine Newsroom’s website simultaneously notes he “does not claim to be without bias.”
“We all have opinions. We all have biases. Like about whether the impacts of the Trump presidencies are reversible and whether his supporters are ‘a cult,’ at what points protests are really just parades, how good ranked-choice voting is for democracy,” Koski wrote in an email, adding, “People can have opinions and biases and still report news.”
It’s unclear whether Maine Newsroom is funded or supported by outside political groups. Koski said he’s made nearly $20,000 over the last year and a half through monetizing the page’s content and accepting donations from viewers.
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While much of Maine Newsroom’s content relies on reporting from established news outlets, Koski said he does some original reporting, citing his interviews with Democratic politicians, presence at news conferences and videos sharing widely available news releases and polling results.
MAINE POLICY UPDATES
Maine Policy Updates describes itself as “Maine’s news source.” The page doesn’t provide much news about anything other than Sen. Susan Collins.
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One of the blog posts boasts about Collins’ bill “to protect Maine first responders from cancer-causing chemicals.” Another touts her “focus on housing, long-term care and mental health” for veterans.
A small disclaimer at the bottom of the website explains why: The page is “paid for by One Nation,” a super PAC created to support Republican candidates in crucial Senate races.
One Nation PAC has taken out some $10 million to support Collins with a massive advertising blitz. Their ads urging viewers to “call and thank” Collins for the same achievements touted on Maine Policy Updates’ website have blanketed Maine’s airwaves. Some of their posts similarly ask readers to call a number and support Collins. She has cited the page in her campaign ads.
While Maine Policy Updates has not posted anything to its Facebook or Twitter accounts, the page has spent more than $110,000 on social media ads since being created in February this year, Meta’s Ad Library shows. The ads present headlines and graphics touting Collins’ legislation.
Similar to the Portland Post, Maine Policy Updates is part of a nationwide network of pages created by partisan interests in battleground states. One Nation has created five other similar blogs across the country, the progressive Substack page Popular Information first reported.
Each page has a nondescript, journalistic name. Their social media pages are mostly empty, but each has a website with about a dozen written articles. Some summarize established outlets’ reporting. Others, like Maine Policy Updates, post “fact-checks.”
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None have names attached. Everything they publish either praises Republicans or belittles Democrats.
Each page has reached millions of people with tens of thousands of dollars in social media ads of their own, in addition to another $5 million spent by One Nation PAC itself, according to Meta’s Ad Library.
That strategy is becoming more common, said Lepird, at Johns Hopkins University. Super PACs supporting both parties are creating “local” pink slime news pages, using them to spend billions of dollars advertising their content and laundering their reputation, Lepird’s research found.
Their strategies and the advertising tools offered to them by social media companies are getting increasingly hyperlocal, she said.
“You can micro-target a community that is really influential for winning an election,” Lepird said.
One Nation PAC did not return emailed requests for comment or answer questions about the pages it has created in Maine and elsewhere. Voicemails left with a phone number attached to Maine Policy Updates’ advertisements were not returned.
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HOW TO SPOT ‘PINK SLIME’
As pink slime proliferates, media ethics scholars say it’s increasingly important to be able to discern where your news is coming from.
These outlets often lack bylines or names on their stories, experts said. They use hyperbolic language, constantly pump out content and don’t state who operates them.
“Essentially,” said Kennedy, at Northeastern, “they are masquerading as local news organizations that are actually tied to some sort of political interest in a way that is not fully disclosed.”
But a page’s broader political lean, financial backing and true ownership are difficult to discern while scrolling. Pink slime sites are “banking on you just seeing it in your social media feed and not doing your due diligence,” Lepird said.
Local news readership has waned in recent years. Mistrust in traditional media has skyrocketed. Social media news has filled that gap, allowing political actors to take advantage of algorithms that push incendiary and divisive content.
“These are content providers who are exploiting a system that’s designed to be exploited,” said Socolow, at UMaine.
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Dylan Tusinski is an investigative reporter with the Maine Trust for Local News' quick strike team, where his stories largely focus on money, drugs and government accountability. He has written about international. More by Dylan Tusinski
