Pulitzer-winning newsrooms are quietly publishing mountains of gambling slop
7 hours ago
- #Gambling Journalism
- #Media Ethics
- #Affiliate Marketing
- Advance Local, which owns Pulitzer-winning regional newspapers, has published over 17,000 low-quality articles promoting gambling and prediction markets since 2022, pretending it is journalism.
- These articles, often nearly identical across different news sites, push promo codes for sportsbooks, online casinos, and prediction markets like Kalshi, leveraging the newspapers' high search engine rankings to attract users.
- Advance Local outsourced content initially to Catena Media, an affiliate marketing specialist, and now employs in-house writers, many formerly from Catena, who produce SEO-friendly gambling content for revenue.
- Disclosures about compensation are in small print, and while Lee Enterprises uses clearer disclaimers, Advance Local defends the content as unique journalism meeting high standards.
- Criticism highlights ethical concerns, as gambling promotion risks corruption in sports and politics, undermining trust, and questions whether such content production qualifies as journalism.