Pink-slime journalism is a practice in which American news outlets, or fake partisan operations masquerading as such, publish poor-quality news reports that appear to be local news.[1] Researchers and media credibility raters have observed pink-slime journalism being used to support both Republican Party and Democratic Party politicians or policies.[1][2][3] The use of these websites to gather user data has also been observed.[4][2][5] The reports are either computer-generated or written by poorly-paid outsourced writers, sometimes using pen names.