A number of U.S. Catholic dioceses and their bishops have issued statements disavowing fake Catholic newspapers that have resurfaced in swing states ahead of the presidential election to target Catholic voters on key issues.

The posts, initially produced before the 2020 presidential election, highlight the rise of what communications experts call “pink slime” journalism – while going against canon law on the use of the name “Catholic” and the US tax code banning churches. and other tax-exempt nonprofit organizations from engaging in partisan politics.

In an October 20 article, ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, noted the resurgence of the “Catholic Tribune” in several states, including Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin . These states are among the crucial swing states for the 2024 elections and will determine which candidate gets the 270 Electoral College votes required to win the presidency.

The publication, published as direct mail and available online, features a traditional-looking newspaper format, without a real header listing the publisher, editors, and editors.

The Catholic Tribune’s digital version – which, like its print counterpart, is tailored to each state, with a uniform design across all its websites – appears to rely on diocesan and parish directories, social media posts and news releases press for most of its content. , much of which is obsolete on several sites. A seemingly national site, AmericanCatholicTribune.com, presents more recent information from other Catholic media outlets.

Yet interspersed with news about religious appointments, academic roundtables, and mass intentions are articles — mostly without bylines or original reporting — that urge readers to take action in elections on issues like abortion and religious freedom.

ProPublica observed that a print version of the Wisconsin Catholic Tribune actively sought to “undermine Vice President Kamala Harris and support former President Donald Trump.”

Catholic voters are a key demographic in swing states, and nationally they are often more evenly divided than other Christian voters. For example, in 2020, about 49% of Catholic voters supported Trump while about 50% supported President Joe Biden, according to Pew Research Center data.

Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is a state in which both candidates campaigned heavily and will likely play a key role in whether Harris or Trump is elected to the White House. Exit polls from 2020 showed that 30% of respondents who voted in Pennsylvania’s elections that year identified as Catholic.

Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all supported Trump in 2016, leading to his election as president, but these same Rust Belt states voted against him in 2020 to support Biden.

An Oct. 21 Washington Post and Schar School poll found that Harris and Trump were in close competition in each of seven battleground states, which also include North Carolina and Georgia.

Several bishops and dioceses have criticized the Catholic Tribune newspapers for misleadingly claiming to represent the interests of the Church, including the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, the Archdiocese of Detroit and the Diocese of Reno, Nevada.

In a statement posted on its website, the Archdiocese of Detroit said it is “aware that the Michigan Catholic Tribune, a newspaper falsely representing itself as Catholic, is being mailed to parishioners in some areas” of the state.

“This post is not endorsed by or affiliated with the Archdiocese of Detroit,” the statement said, noting that the archdiocese did not share any postal information with the post’s organizers.

Furthermore, the archdiocese stressed that to its knowledge, the Tribune “does not have the appropriate authorization required by canon law (of the Church) to call itself Catholic.”

Canon 216, cited by the Archdiocese of Detroit in its statement, states that while “all Christian faithful have the right to promote or support apostolic action even through their own commitments, according to their own state and condition… no commitment should claim the name Catholic without the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority.

The Internal Revenue Service prohibits “all organizations covered by section 501(c)(3)” from “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate to an elective public office. Failure to comply with these rules could result in loss of tax-exempt status as well as tax penalties.

Using tax records and business disclosures, ProPublica said it “traced the newspapers to a Chicago-based publishing network run by former television reporter Brian Timpone.”

Over the past two decades, Timpone and other partners have built several “paid” news networks, where advertising, political partisanship and – in the case of Timpone’s Journatic company – admitted plagiarism and Overseas outsourcing using fake signatures has obscured the flow of information. .

Timpone, who has not yet responded to OSV News’ email and voicemail requests for comment, has long been on the research radar of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School.

Since 2019, Tow member Priyanjana Bengani has tracked the spread of “partisan media outlets masquerading as local news organizations” with algorithmically generated articles as an election disinformation tactic.

While many legitimate local news outlets have closed due to lack of funding, these “pink slime” publications (borrowing a former U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist’s term for commercial meat fillers) have gradually expanded to fill the void, especially as elections approach, Bengani said in a 2019 article.

In a 175-page report, the Tow Center detailed the case of Metric Media and its Catholic Tribune sites as an example of prolific pink slime journalism.