Prue Beidler is a former Lake Forest city council member, a former mayoral candidate earlier this year in that affluent North Shore suburb, and a longtime contributor to Democratic candidates. So she’s no stranger to politics. But even she was shocked at the headline in the December 4th print edition of the Lake County Gazette as it landed on her neighbors’ doorsteps.

“Democratic mega-donor Prue Beidler hosts Hillary Clinton fundraiser,” blared the headline, complete with headshots of Beidler and Clinton. The article said Beidler held the fundraiser on “Tuesday, November 14.”

The only problem is that she didn’t. 

The headline was totally false.

 “I was in Lake Forest that day and the only thing I did was go to a meeting at a friends’ house. So no, I have no idea why or how they came up with this about me. But it’s totally untrue.”

Furthermore, it hardly even makes sense. Clinton isn’t a candidate for any political office, so why would she be fundraising? The aim, Beidler believes, was to sully her name with conservative Republicans by associating her with Clinton. 

The Lake County Gazette is one of a string of local papers published by Local Government Information Services, which has ties to Dan Proft, a Republican political advisor turned right wing talk radio host. Proft has moved from Illinois to Florida but continues his local publishing activities. The papers have no regular publishing schedule but turn up as election time nears, attacking Democrats and pushing right wing views while masquerading as legitimate community newspapers.

“Basically, they are purveyors of political propaganda meant to elect conservative Republicans in the state. And what makes them particularly objectionable is they pretend to be legitimate newspapers,” said Dick Simpson, former Chicago alderman and political science professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Chicago. “That’s not illegal. And it has been done before. But in essence, it’s trying to get voters to read the material and then swing their vote in the next election.”

Proft runs a political action committee called People Who Play by the Rules PAC and has received millions of dollars in contributions over several election cycles from wealthy cardboard box magnate Richard Uihlein.

Proft’s fake newspapers are published all over the state with home-spun names like Chicago City Wire; North Cook News; West Cook News; South Cook News; DuPage Policy Journal; Kane County Reporter; Will County Gazette; and Sangamon Sun.

The papers might even be welcomed, especially by older readers in communities where local newspapers have been decimated by vanishing advertising revenues and online competition. Except they hide their political partisanship under a veil of respectability.

“The accelerating loss of legacy local news outlets combined with the growth of faux local news operations is creating a perfect storm of misinformation and disinformation in many communities,” Tim Franklin, senior associate dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism told the Chicago Tribune.

Nowhere in Proft’s papers is the true objective of the publication spelled out: to elect conservative Republicans. Each paper bears a noble-sounding slogan: Real data, real news. But as Beidler found out, the news is not only not real, but it can also be outright lies.

“In regular papers, real papers, when they make a mistake and get called on it, it’s noted,” said Beidler. “It’s not headlined. They don’t say ‘Blew It!’ But there’s a corrections space, and they take that seriously. There was no intent for accuracy as far as I can tell in this piece. That’s what was different. There different thing is this story was flat out lying.”

Beidler noted that the story contained no byline, so she doesn’t know who wrote it. The paper also lists no editors to whom complaints can be directed. That’s not unusual in Proft’s papers, many of which contain stories that appear to be aggregated by computer programs which mash together publicly available information.

How effective are Proft’s newspapers at helping his candidates win elections? Not very.

“There are not formal studies of these things. But we have no reason to believe these things have any impact on voting or if they’re not enough to help his people win,” said Chris Mooney, political science professor emeritus at University of Illinois Chicago. “The other goal is that Proft is playing to an audience of one; Dick Uihlein. He gives Proft millions of dollars and doesn’t get anything for it that I can see. Other than putting this political propaganda out there to muddy up the world. It’s one man’s right wing vanity project with no political impact. All it does is deceive and confuse people.”

Uihlein donated more than $42 million to Proft’s PAC in 2022, according to campaign finance records.

Though conservative fake newspapers and websites dominate the field, liberal and progressive players are growing. The journalism watchdog NewsGuard identified five large partisan liberal and conservative networks operating under the guise of legitimate new sites: LGIS, Courier Newsroom, The Main Street Sentinel, The American Independent and Metric Media.

Our attempts to reach Proft for comment were unsuccessful. But in an interview last year on the NewsNation cable TV network, he defended his publishing activities. “We provide angles to stories and information that you don’t get from the left leaning or left – or not so leaning, just hard-left news outlets,” said Proft. “They’re all sharing a brain and we’re providing a different perspective on some of the issues that are salient in people’s lives.”

Being the target of an untrue story in one of Proft’s political propaganda sheets was a wake-up call for Beidler.

“You have to be careful where you get your news,” she said. “If there aren’t writer’s names or. A byline associated with stories, names you can contact, don’t trust the source. We’re in these worrisome times, having to constantly wonder if this is real news? It’s a burden but it’s a needed responsibility we all must take on for the sake of democracy and in terms of trusting the people delivering our news.”