Brian Timpone is an American

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...

businessman and former journalist who operates a network of nearly 1,300 conservative local news websites. In 2012, Timpone stated that articles on his websites are partially written by

freelancers ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

outside of the United States, although he described the writing as "domestic" in a separate interview. According to '' The New York Times'', Timpone's "operation is rooted in deception, eschewing hallmarks of news reporting like fairness and transparency." His sites publish articles for pay from outside groups, and do not disclose it.

Education and early career

Timpone graduated from Marian Catholic High School in

Chicago Heights, Illinois Chicago Heights is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 27,480 at the 2020 census. In earlier years, Chicago Heights was nicknamed "The Crossroads of the Nation". Currently, it is nicknamed "The Heights". Geogra ...

. He received a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri; while attending, he covered sports and news for the University-owned

KOMU-TV KOMU-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Columbia, Missouri, United States, serving the Columbia–Jefferson City market as an affiliate of NBC and The CW Plus. The station's studios and transmitter are located on US 63 southeast ...

. After school, he took a job at

KDLH KDLH (channel 3) is a television station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Superior, Wisconsin–licensed dual NBC/CBS affiliate KBJR-TV, channel 6 (and its Chisholm, Minn ...

in Duluth, Minnesota, which he worked for less than a year before taking another TV job in Champaign, Illinois. Timpone was hired as the personal spokesman to Illinois House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels in 1997.

News publishing

Timpone is involved with a number of interconnected media companies that post press releases and lightly copied content as news articles, at one point publishing under false bylines. The process has been described as "

pay for play Pay-to-play, sometimes pay-for-play or P2P, is a phrase used for a variety of situations in which money is exchanged for services or the privilege to engage in certain activities. The common denominator of all forms of pay-to-play is that one mu ...

", compared to the content farming of Demand Media, and called pink slime' journalism". The companies include Local Government Information Services (LGIS), of which he is president, Metric Media, Franklin Archer, Locality Labs (formerly known as Journatic and LocalLabs), DirecTech LLC, Interactive Content Services, Newsinator, Blockshopper, and The Record Inc. The companies have received funding from

Liberty Principles PAC Liberty Principles PAC was a conservative, Illinois-based super PAC (political action committee). The PAC supported political candidates for state and local offices in Illinois who "are committed to the economic liberty policy agenda." The PAC is a ...

(substantially funded by

Jeanne Ives Jeanne M. Ives (née Remmes, born October 4, 1964) is an American politician. A Republican, she is a former member of the Illinois House of Representatives for the 42nd district. She has run for governor of Illinois, and for U.S. Representativ ...

and hotelier Monty Bennett as customers.

The Record network

The Record network was started by Timpone in September 2004 with The Madison County Record, a legal journal for

Madison County, Illinois Madison County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a part of the Metro East in southern Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 264,776, making it the eighth-most populous county in Illinois and the most pop ...

. It was silently funded by the United States Chamber of Commerce's

Institute for Legal Reform The US Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR), founded in 1998, is a separately incorporated affiliate of the United States Chamber of Commerce. The organization advocates for civil justice reform, commonly referred to as tort reform. The pres ...

to oppose lawsuits against businesses and to support tort reform. The Chamber later funded a site run by The Record called Legal Newsline. , The Record's network included: Cook County Record, Florida Record, Legal Newsline, Louisiana Record, Madison - St. Clair Record, Northern California Record, Pennsylvania Record, SE Texas Record, Southern California Record, St. Louis Record, and West Virginia Record. The mobile apps for the eleven websites at

App Store (iOS/iPadOS) The App Store is an app store platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS Software D ...

shows the seller to be The Record, Inc. and the copyright holder is Newsinator, LLC.

Journatic and BlockShopper

Journatic (a portmanteau of "journalism" and "automatic") was founded by Timpone in 2006. According to Timpone, Journatic used news data processed by workers in the Philippines, but he states that the writing is "domestic". Journatic's job listings in the Philippines advertised a $0.35–0.40 pay rate per article for "writers to work on events stories" who are "able to commit to 250 pieces/week minimum". Journatic managed ''TribLocal'', a hyperlocal news branch of the '' Chicago Tribune'' that targeted suburban neighborhoods around Chicago, in the spring of 2012. In a June 2012 episode of '' This American Life'', Timpone disclosed that Journatic was

outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

its writing to over 300

using fake "Anglo-sounding" bylines in several geographic areas outside of the United States, including the Philippines, Eastern Europe, Brazil, and Africa. Following the release of the episode and the discovery of plagiarism in Journatic's articles, the '' Chicago Tribune'', ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the '' Chicag ...

'', ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With it ...

'', and Gatehouse Media suspended their relationships with the company. While Hearst's ''Houston Chronicle'' ended its partnership, Hearst's '' San Francisco Chronicle'' reviewed its use of the service and continued using it. BlockShopper, also founded by Timpone in 2006, though it was merged into Journatic in 2008, was said by Timpone to be "a nod to the days when newspapers included real estate, graduations and marriage announcements". After BlockShopper published high dollar real estate sales and purchases by several high-profile people, and in some cases tied in their employer in the announcement, several anti-BlockShopper websites popped up and lawsuits were filed. Some of the targeted people said it would " ncreasethe risk that baddies will rob them, steal their identities or kidnap their children." Journatic rebranded as "Locality Labs" in 2013.

Locality Labs and Metric Media

In 2019, Locality Labs delivered the ''Hinsdale School News'' to residents of

Hinsdale, Illinois Hinsdale is a village in Cook and DuPage counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Hinsdale is a western suburb of Chicago. The population was 17,395 at the 2020 census, most of whom lived in DuPage County. The town's ZIP code is 60521. The tow ...

. The paper appropriated the logo of the local school district and had a heavy focus on articles opposing the upcoming referendum, which would have raised the school's budget. Officials from the district sent

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not disc ...

letters to several companies in the Timpone network, stating that the use of its logos were deceptive and an instance of

trademark infringement Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the licence). Infringement may ...

. Building up to the 2020 elections, the network increased from 450 sites to over 1,200 sites. Out of 50,000 articles, 15,000 of them were unique stories, with only about 100 with human bylines. Many automated sources included federal programs ( Department of Education,

Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

) and the fuel price site Gas Buddy. Articles with heavy conservative and Republican biases would also appear in targeted areas. In 2021, a report by

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...

further exposed Timpone's network of companies including Metric Media LLC, Newsinator/Franklin Archer, Local Government Information Services (LGIS), Pipeline Media, and Locality Labs (formerly known as Journatic and Blockshopper). Also disclosed were some of the financial relationships between the entities, certain individuals involved, and several political and advocacy organizations which have funded the network, all under the guise of "local news". Some of the large

organizations donating included

Donors Trust Donors Trust is an American nonprofit donor-advised fund. It was founded in 1999 with the goal of "safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors". As a donor advised fund, Donors Trust is not legally required to disclose the id ...

Donors Capital Fund Donors Capital Fund is a nonprofit United States donor-advised charity that distributes grants to conservative and libertarian organizations. Donors Capital Fund is associated with Donors Trust, another donor-advised fund. Background Donors Ca ...

Uline Uline is a privately held American company which offers shipping and other business supplies. It was founded in 1980 by Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein. It has more than 8,000 employees and is headquartered in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. It h ...

and its owners

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein Richard Ellis Uihlein ( ; born 1945) and Elizabeth Uihlein are American billionaire businesspeople, founders of Uline and conservative donors. Richard is also an heir to the Schlitz brewing fortune.CatholicVote.org. Opining what effect this network of 'pay for play' websites has had, "Increasingly, we are seeing political campaigning which uses news as a cloak for campaigning activities potentially further undermining trust in legitimate local news outlets." Dan Kennedy of GBH News wrote, "Metric Media ... is a political play. Right-wing interests give money through a series of interlocking organizations in return for publishing indoctrination disguised as local news."

Judd Legum Judd Legum (born December 8, 1978) is an American journalist, lawyer, and political staffer. Early life Legum was born in Annapolis, Maryland. Legum earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy analysis from Pomona College and a Juris Doctor fr ...

of Popular Information pointed out that the Timpone network, including 28 'local news' websites in Virginia, helped elect a Republican as next governor of Virginia by pushing a false narrative about

critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Go ...

(CRT) "infiltrating schools" in Virginia, which had not happened. Legum also reported that the same anti-CRT content was being automatically pushed out to Timpone's other 'local news' websites around the country in anticipation of the 2022 election cycle. Metric Media's websites, printed papers, robocalls, and text messages were linked to the 2022 election, notably among right-wing PACs including Tim Dunn's Defend Texas Liberty PAC, Uihlein's Illinois-centered People Who Play by the Rules PAC (run by

Dan Proft Daniel K. Proft (born April 29, 1972) is an American political commentator and activist. A member of the Republican Party, he is a talk radio host for Chicago radio station WIND and was a candidate for Governor of Illinois in 2010. He voices a ...

), and Restoration PAC, partly funded by Uihlein. Tim Dunn is also linked to Pipeline Media. The network's printed newspapers were mailed to voters in Arizona, Kansas, and Illinois. Several publications claiming to be Catholic, with such titles as ''Arizona Catholic Tribune'' and ''Michigan Catholic Tribune'', are unaffiliated with the Catholic dioceses in the areas they were printed. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay further noted that the ''Wisconsin Catholic Tribune'' used content from its in-house publication, ''The Compass'', without permission in violation of copyright law.

References

External links

Metric Media
(website)
The Record, Inc.
(website)
BlockShopper
(website)
Metric Media, LLC — List of associated sites

Spreadsheet of Metric Media-sponsored URLs/domains as of October 2020
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Timpone, Brian American businesspeople American male journalists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Missouri alumni