NewsGuard Audit Finds AI Chatbots Cite Partisan 'Pink Slime' Sites in 48.2% of Midterm Queries

Collectively, the chatbots cited pink slime sites along with other sources in 48.2 percent of their responses. In 7.7 percent of responses, pink slime sites were the only sources cited at all, though other sources appeared in the source list provided at the end of the response, according to the audit.

The tools differed widely. OpenAI's ChatGPT cited a pink slime site in 70.8 percent of responses. Microsoft's Copilot and Perplexity each did so in 54.2 percent. Anthropic's Claude followed at 50 percent, Google's Gemini at 41.7 percent, Meta AI at 37.5 percent, and xAI's Grok at 29.2 percent. The audit said none of the AI tools received results they would likely be eager to boast about.

Across all seven chatbots, left-leaning pink slime sites were cited in 36.3 percent of responses, compared with 11.9 percent for right-leaning sites, making the left-leaning sites about three times more likely to appear. The Politico article said that difference may have more to do with the progressive sites posting far more frequently than with any political bias from the chatbots.

Only one chatbot response out of 168 total queries noted the partisan nature of the source while citing a pink slime site, according to the article. Two NewsGuard analysts writing in Politico said voters trying to educate themselves about candidates "are unknowingly being served partisan talking points in the guise of neutral news summaries."

The analysts said the broader problem appears to be that consumer-oriented AI chatbots "use much of the internet's content — regardless of the reliability or standards of the source — to frame their answers." The findings focus on how AI-generated summaries and citations can surface material from outlets that present themselves as local news but are partisan.

NewsGuard's audit examined seven AI tools: ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Meta AI and Grok. The queries were based on recent coverage of candidates and issues by 12 pink slime sites. The Slashdot report was published on Sept. 28, 2026.