Inside a private portal from GOP campaigns to local news sites

The top Republican campaigns in Illinois used a private online portal last year to request stories and shape coverage in a network of media outlets that present themselves as local newspapers, according to documents and people familiar with the setup.

Screenshots show that the password-protected portal, called Lumen, allowed users to pitch stories; provide interview subjects as well as questions; place announcements and submit op-eds to be “published verbatim” in any of about 30 sites that form part of the Illinois-focused media network, called Local Government Information Services.

In some cases, users with Lumen access could choose whether to add a fact-checking step, screenshots obtained by The Washington Post show. Campaigns could find feedback about the stories they had submitted within the portal, including online views and the kinds of audiences reacting to the content, according to people with access to Lumen who, like most others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details.

The online portal offers the potential for a new level of collaboration between political operators and certain media outlets — one in which candidates can easily seek to customize news stories without the public’s knowledge. The use of the tactic in Illinois has caught the attention of allies of former president Donald Trump, who have discussed the potential of expanding the operation, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The network is run by Brian Timpone, a businessman and former television broadcaster who told federal regulators in 2016 that his publishing company was filling the void left by the decline of community news, “delivering hundreds and sometimes thousands of local news stories each week.” He did not respond to requests for comment.

The Illinois-centric outlets form just one part of a broader network of sites, estimated to number more than 1,200 nationally, that the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University has connected to Timpone. The Lumen portal shares technical features, including an online performance tracking ID, with multiple sites that form part of what Priyanjana Bengani, a fellow in computational journalism at the Tow Center, described as Timpone’s extended network.

Timpone has denied that the sites serve partisan interests. In 2016, he submitted a sworn declaration to the Federal Election Commission responding to a complaint that his network’s coverage represented an in-kind contribution to a Republican candidate.

In his declaration, Timpone wrote that his company “does not coordinate its articles or content with candidates, political committees, or parties.” The complaint was ultimately dismissed.

The Lumen portal predates last year’s elections and has been used not just by candidates but also by GOP lawmakers in Illinois, according to people familiar with the site. But it assumed a broader role in providing a pipeline for Republicans to request stories related to last November’s marquee races, these people said.

While political operatives and others ensured access to Lumen for the top Republicans in the state, including the party’s candidates for governor and attorney general, major Democratic campaigns were unaware of the portal’s existence, according to those with knowledge of the situation.

In one example, the campaign of Darren Bailey, the Republican running to unseat Illinois’ governor, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, used the portal to pitch a story days before last November’s election about an endorsement from Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democrat and onetime congresswoman from Hawaii, according to documents reviewed by The Post. A story soon appeared in the Dupage Policy Journal, whose website describes itself as a product of Local Government Information Services.

The Dupage Policy Journal quoted Gabbard’s effusive comments about Bailey, ticked off Bailey’s other endorsements and reported that the GOP candidate was “honored” by the vote of confidence. Other Chicago-area outlets reporting on the Gabbard endorsement, by contrast, offered additional context. They noted that Gabbard had previously called Donald Trump, who was also backing Bailey’s run, “unfit to serve” and quoted Pritzker criticizing Gabbard as a “conspiracy theorist.” Bailey, who failed to unseat Pritzker, did not respond to a request for comment.

Timpone has spoken to two Trump allies about expanding his operation, according to people with knowledge of the interactions. The discussions suggest that Illinois could be a testing ground for much broader work leading into 2024. One person familiar with his comments said the conglomerate could seek to form “tens of thousands” of new websites.

The goal, one of the people briefed on the project said, is to create “center-right websites” in communities where there is “little or no local news.”

Gary Coby and Brad Parscale, architects of Trump’s digital operation, have both spoken with Timpone, these people said, describing Coby as having more involved conversations. But Parscale’s company, Nucleus, is assisting by pushing pro-Republican stories from some of Timpone’s websites to Republican donors and others in its newsletters, a person familiar with the matter said.

In private presentations, Timpone has expressed interest in using artificial intelligence to automate parts of the newsgathering and publication process, according to people briefed on the discussions.

A growing network

Local Government Information Services was incorporated in 2016, according to state records, which list Timpone as president. A onetime television reporter, Timpone served as a spokesman for a Republican leader in the Illinois legislature before beginning his business career, according to a 1997 article in a Chicago-area newspaper.

The typical homepage of a Local Government Information Services website looks like an ordinary local publication. Headlines about college Republicans appear alongside notices of spring wine walks. The sites have titles like Prairie State Wire, Peoria Standard and West Cook News.

The reach of the outlets is difficult to measure. But since its founding, Local Government Information Services has more than doubled its sites and also ramped up print publication. Last year, the growing presence of the Dupage Policy Journal and other papers in Timpone’s network caused the Illinois Press Association to release a statement clarifying that the nonpartisan association had not certified the outlets.

“Technology has significantly lowered the barrier for entry into publishing,” the statement warned, “making it extremely difficult to distinguish between legitimate news and political propaganda.”

Top Democrats, seeing Local Government Information Services papers increasingly appearing on doorsteps around Illinois, also objected, citing the network’s leadership and what they saw as its skewed coverage. At the time, the way stories were pitched through Lumen was veiled from public view.

Six weeks before the election, Pritzker’s campaign cried foul over a move by Paddock Publishing — the parent company of a newspaper based in Arlington Heights, Ill. — to extend its printing services to Local Government Information Services. “These fake newspapers represent an existential threat to quality, independent journalism,” Pritzker’s campaign wrote in a letter to the publisher.

Paddock Publishing ended the contract. But Dan Proft, a talk radio host and Timpone ally, was defiant. He promised that Local Government Information Services papers “will continue to be printed and distributed even if we have to return to the Gutenberg press.” Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country, picked up the network for a time, a spokesperson confirmed in an email, but said, “Local Government Information Services is no longer a commercial print customer.”

Proft has described himself as a “part owner” of the network, though his name does not currently appear on Illinois registration records. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Last year, Proft ran a pro-Bailey PAC that received $42 million from Richard Uihlein, the Chicago-area shipping supplies magnate and one of the most prolific GOP donors in the country, according to filings in Illinois.

One of the reasons candidates went to Local Government Information Services outlets for coverage was to get Uihlein’s attention, said two high-level GOP aides in Illinois.

“Everyone gets told Dick Uihlein reads these papers religiously,” said one of the aides. Uihlein did not respond to a question about whether he reads the papers.

A private portal

Lumen is reached through a sign-in page, lumenintel.com, that is bare except for email and password fields.

Different people have provided campaigns with access to the portal, according to those with log-in credentials. They include someone listed as an author on at least one of Timpone’s sites.

Another person who helped set up a campaign with access to Lumen last year — in part by arranging a briefing on the technical infrastructure — was Jeanne Ives, a former state lawmaker who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for governor in 2018, according to messages reviewed by The Post. She did not respond to requests for comment.

People who have used the portal said they had limited insight into how their pitches were vetted. But they often saw their content appear quickly on their favored sites. They also said they received feedback about how their stories were performing, which they used to hone their messaging.

“You manually select which site you want to be published on,” said a campaign operative. Then, this person added, “I would see all the clicks” that the content generated.

Lumen gave users the ability to select the urgency of their pitches — from standard to “Rush,” meaning less than four hours until publication, the screenshots show. “Expedited stories may incur … a service fee,” the site tells users.

When the pitch included an interview, Lumen offered the ability to propose questions. “Provide a list of questions that you would like the interviewee to answer,” the prompt reads.

Despite pitching stories to the network, campaign officials said, they had few interactions with reporters for Local Government Information Services papers. One Republican consultant said he knew only one writer, whom he described as a “stringer based out of St. Louis.”

Many stories appear without reporter bylines. The article about Gabbard was credited to “DuPage Policy Journal Report.” An email inquiry to the site went unanswered.

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Fernande Dalal

Update: 2024-07-22

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