Below is my column in The Hill on the recent notice that this blog is now being formally “reviewed” by NewsGuard, a company that I just criticized in a prior Hill column as a threat to free speech. The questions from NewsGuard were revealing and concerning. Today, I have posted the response of NewsGuard’s co-founder Gordon Crovitz as well as my response to his arguments.
Here are is the column:
Recently, I wrote a Hill column criticizing NewsGuard, a rating operation being used to warn users, advertisers, educators and funders away from media outlets based on how it views the outlets’ “credibility and transparency.”
Roughly a week later, NewsGuard came knocking at my door. My blog, Res Ipsa (jonathanturley.org), is now being reviewed and the questions sent by NewsGuard were alarming, but not surprising.
I do not know whether the sudden interest in my site was prompted by my column. I have previously criticized NewsGuard as one of the most sophisticated operations being used to “white list” and “black list” sites.
My new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” details how such sites fit into a massive censorship system that one federal court called “Orwellian.”
For any site criticizing the media or the Biden administration, the most chilling words today are “I’m from NewsGuard and I am here to rate you.”
Conservatives have long accused the company of targeting conservative and libertarian sites and carrying out the agenda of its co-founder Steven Brill. Conversely, many media outlets have heralded his efforts to identify disinformation sites for advertisers and agencies.
Brill and his co-founder, L. Gordon Crovitz, want their company to be the media version of the Standard & Poor’s rating for financial institutions. However, unlike the S&P, which looks at financial reports, NewsGuard rates highly subjective judgments like “credibility” based on whether they publish “clearly and significantly false or egregiously misleading” information. They even offer a “Nutrition Label” for consumers of information.
Of course, what Brill considers nutritious may not be the preferred diet of many in the country. But they might not get a choice since the goal is to allow other companies and carriers to use the ratings to disfavor or censor non-nutritious sites.
The rating of sites is arguably the most effective way of silencing or marginalizing opposing views. I previously wrote about other sites supported by the Biden administration that performed a similar function, including the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).
GDI then released a list of the 10 most dangerous sites, all of which are popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. GDI warned advertisers that they were accepting “reputational and brand risk” by “financially supporting disinformation online.” The blacklisted sites included Reason, a respected libertarian-oriented source of news and commentary about the government. However, HuffPost, a far left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.
When NewsGuard came looking for Res Ipsa, the questions sounded like they came directly from GDI.
I was first asked for information on the financial or revenue sources used to support my blog, on which I republish my opinion pieces from various newspapers and publish original blog columns.
Given NewsGuard’s reputation, the email would ordinarily trigger panic on many sites. But I pay not to have advertising, and the closest I come to financial support would be my wife, since we live in a community property state. If NewsGuard wants to blacklist me with my wife, it is a bit late. Trust me, she knows.
NewsGuard also claimed that it could not find a single correction on my site. In fact, there is a location for readers marked “corrections” to register objections and corrections to postings on the site. I also occasionally post corrections, changes and clarifications.
NewsGuard also made bizarre inquiries, including about why I called my blog “Res Ipsa Liquitur [sic] – the thing itself speaks. Could you explain the reason to this non-lawyer?” Res ipsa loquitur is defined in the header as “The thing itself speaks,” which I think speaks for itself.
But one concern was particularly illuminating:
“I cannot find any information on the site that would signal to readers that the site’s content reflects a conservative or libertarian perspective, as is evident in your articles. Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”
I have historically been criticized as a liberal, conservative or a libertarian depending on the particular op-eds. I certainly admit to libertarian viewpoints, though I hold many traditional liberal views.
For example, I have been outspoken for decades in favor same-sex marriage, environmental protection, free speech and other individual rights. I am a registered Democrat who has defended reporters, activists and academics on the left for years in both courts and columns.
The blog has thousands of postings that cut across the ideological spectrum. What I have not done is suspend my legal judgment when cases touch on the interests of conservatives or Donald Trump. While I have criticized Trump in the past, I have also objected to some of the efforts to impeach or convict him on dubious legal theories.
Yet, NewsGuard appears to believe that I should label myself as conservative or libertarian as a warning or notice to any innocent strays who may wander on to my blog. It does not appear that NewsGuard makes the same objection to HuffPost or the New Republic, which run overwhelmingly liberal posts. Yet, alleged conservative or libertarian sites are expected to post a warning as if they were porn sites.
NewsGuard is not alone in employing this technique. Mainstream media outlets often label me as a “conservative professor” in reporting my viewpoints. They do not ordinarily label professors with pronounced liberal views or anti-Trump writings as “liberal.”
Studies show that the vast majority of law professors run from the left to the far left. A study found that only 9 percent of law school professors at the top 50 law schools identify as conservative. A 2017 study found only 15 percent of faculties overall were conservative.
It is rare for the media to identify those professors as “liberal,” including many professors on the far left who regularly denounce conservatives or Republicans. It is simply treated as not worth mentioning. Yet, anyone libertarian or right of center gets the moniker as a warning that their viewpoint should considered in weighing their conclusions.
Yet, NewsGuard is in the business of labeling people . . . and warning advertisers. It considers my writings to be conservative or libertarian and wants to know “Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”
It does not matter that my views cut across the ideological spectrum or that I do not agree with NewsGuard’s label. Indeed, while I clearly hold libertarian views, libertarians run a spectrum from liberal to conservative. The common article of faith is the maximization of individual rights, while there is considerable disagreement on many policies. Steven Brill is considered a diehard liberal. Would it be fair to add a notice or qualifier of “liberal” to any of his columns or opinions?
It does not matter. Apparently from where NewsGuard reviewers sit, I am a de facto conservative or libertarian who needs to wear a digital bell to warn others.
It is a system that includes what Elon Musk correctly called “the advertising boycott racket.” Musk was responding to another such group pushing a rating system as an euphemism for blacklisting. For targeted sites, NewsGuard is now the leading racketeer in that system. It makes millions of dollars by rating sites — a new and profitable enterprise with dozens of other academic and for-profit groups.
They have commoditized free speech in blacklisting and potentially silencing others. If you are the Standard & Poor’s of political discourse, you can rate sites out of existence by making them a type of junk bond blog.
Yet, the fact that I have no advertisers or sponsors to scare off does not mean that NewsGuard cannot undermine the site.
The company has reportedly received federal contracts, which some in Congress have sought to block. It is also allied with organizations like Turnitin to control what teachers and students will read or use in schools.
The powerful American Federation of Teachers, which has been criticized for its far left political alliances with Democratic candidates, has also pushed NewsGuard for schools.
This is why my book calls for a number of reforms, including barring federal funds for groups engaged in censoring, rating or blacklisting sites.
NewsGuard shows that such legislation cannot come soon enough.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster, June 18, 2024).
N.B.: The original version of this column included MSNBC as an example of liberal sites that do not post their own ideological bent or label. I later heard from NewsGuard that they did indeed mark down MSNBC for failing to make such a disclosure, so I removed it from this blog column. I posted a response today on why I continue to oppose rating systems such as NewsGuard.
Nice to see, in the age of disinformation and mudslinging, that it is still possible to have discourse in a gentlemanly manner.
It’s says CGI in paragraph 13. Should that be CDI?
It should be GDI. Turley was referring to GDI which is the other rating site that he is critical of because it is government funded.
NewsGuard is just another example of Orwell’s Newspeak. I’ve watched the media and their leftist tilt for over 40 years. In the early 1980’s, the media started labeling everything it disagreed with or which was right of center with the nomenclature “conservative author/speaker/senator/organization/media” but labeled NOTHING left of center “liberal author/speaker/senator/organization/media”. It became clear that the media was turning to propaganda machine for the Democrats/Liberals/ Socialists and that they were aligned in creating fake narratives about conservatives. They are purveyors of misinformation – essentially the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Does it defeat the purpose of having a Consitution when people are free to do the sort of tyrannical things what we wouldn’t even want the government to do?
I don’t think so, but certainly federal funding for private companies to do what the government is not allowed to do cannot stand.
IMO that is also true when the benefit conferred by the government on the private company takes some form other than direct financial compensation. There are lots of ways that the government can bribe an erstwhile private company without writing a check.
Sometime in the 1990’s, in a source I can’t find, Prof. Harold Bloom, a literary critic on the Yale faculty, wrote something like this: cultures pass through different stages; in some stages, they want inquiry into truth; in other stages, they want didactic truths handed down by some recognized authority. He believed we had then passed into the latter stage. If so. that would explain the desire for “truth” rating systems.
edwardmahl,
I think this is a response to the whole “Trust the experts!” from the COVID lockdowns. They are trying to force the trust “the experts” thing down our throats. They cannot have us thinking for ourselves.
How do you qualify an expert when they are hiding who and what they really are, do, etc?
Ok, who is the ‘recognized authority’, Scary Poppins? And I don’t recall hearing from very many experts during Covid, Mr farmer from Greer, Greenville, Gaffney. The system definitely tried to close down the experts for Fauci, CD, etc.
I just re-watched the movie “Running Man” last night for the first time in what must have been 20 years or more. Frightening how closely our current culture has come to what was portrayed.
If all you want to do about rating agencies like NewsGuard is complain about them, then I really don’t see the point.
I do think a line is crossed if a public school district adopts such a rating system, because this is govt. attempting to use its powers to police the infospace.
But, non-govt. actors, media, tech firms? Everyone in a free society has a “right to ignore” content perceived to be insignificant, wrongheaded, or working against their interests. We all do this naturally every day, dozens of times a day, without even thinking about it.
Someone shares with you some unflattering gossip, or some hair-brained conspiracy theory — you refrain from passing it along to anyone — are you engaging in censorship? It’s usually referred to as filtering.
Non-govt. organizations have the same right-to-communicate based on subjective filtering. And yes, the self-interests of the org. shape these judgments. That can lead to corruption of the infospace, for example, the way the tobacco companies for decades misled themselves and the public about the link to cancer. That’s why we need lawsuits as a counterforce to organized programs of public deception. Lawsuits are the correct way to counter and deter defamation and other pernicious public frauds.
I’m not convinced JT is able to define “censorship” in any objective way. It would be progress if he could. And, as I argue, subjective definitions of censorship provide no roadmap for systematically improving the way the infospace works. There is no obligation to spread content unfiltered.
If NewsGuard goes overboard and does reputational damage with its ratings, then sue ’em for defamation.
pbinca had his Greta Thunberg “How Dare You!” moment:
If all you want to do about rating agencies like NewsGuard is complain about them, then I really don’t see the point.
Yeah, there’s no point to calling out the Soviet Democrats propaganda arm that includes the “fact checkers” and raters like Newsguard! No point at all! Nothing to see here folks, move along now – CNN has a nice little article saying Kamala Harris was never the Border Czar, make sure you read that.
More accurately, we should ask what pbinca’s point is when he comes here to make posts like this.
I thought this website was about legal analysis of current affairs. It started out that way, and many lawyers were posting comments every day, informed about current law and how it might be improved. The Civility Rule (still shown in the banner at the top of page) was being enforced with human judgment.
While Jonathan still brings a lawyerly perspective, in his treatment of the censorship topic, all he does is complain (writing about specific affronts to free speech). To me, this is restating the problem over-and-over, but never going to the next step: How can we improve the information flows in an open society in a systematic way? Or, is complaining (whack-a-mole criticisms) all we can expect to do? That seems passive….like a losing battle.
I’m not a lawyer, but a systems designer, and my perspective is problem-solving of complex, gnarly issues hanging over society.
Airborne Dog, you asked what was the point of my comment. It was to suggest that we would need an objective definition of “censorship” most everyone could agree to — before we can effectively address the problem via the law. I encouraged JT to come up with an objective definition (he being the expert lawyer on the topic), saying that would be progress. I pointed out that subjective definitions of worthwhile information are a basic human trait, and that everyone filters information they choose to pass along, and questioned whether that filtering is “censorship”.
That pervasive human proclivity stands in the way of any objective definition of “censorship”. I point out that our tradition offers lawsuits for confronting the most pernicious attempts to manipulate the public via deceitful infowarfare. e.g. defamation lawsuits. I suggest using this to put operations like NewsGuard behind the 8-ball.
Frankly, I’m tired of all the whinging. If all you can do is restate a problem, you’ll never solve it.
Pbinca, I don’t see any whining from Professor Turley, but a lot from you and a few others. He has repeatedly defined censorship using examples in the news. You don’t like his definition because it is neutral, and you want a leftist spin attached to it.
We do not need News Guard. They made up their so call criteria, appointed themselves as guardian keeps of all things on the internet, take money from the government, and produce nothing of value.
As the good professor points out, there is no advertising on his blog. He does not need ad revenue. He pays not to have ads.
News Guard is as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
*keepers.
“I cannot find any information on the site that would signal to readers that the site’s content reflects a conservative or libertarian perspective,…”
How about the whole ‘free speech’ thing – that should have been the big tell, unfortunately.
Perhaps Brill and Crovitz can tell you/us where their site signals to readers that it is part of the fascist arm of the dnc? They are the epitome of wehat the left has (no longer) up its sleeve. Brill and Crovitz (and his wife Minky, don’t call me Minkovitz, Worden)…shocking patina there. Here is Crovitz’s wife Minky’s (for reals) books, notice how here how her connection to the head of the Democrat Party of Hong Kong may have influenced here:
China’s Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges[6] (Seven Stories Press, 2008)
Foreword by Nicholas Kristof. China’s Great Leap examines three decades of reform in the People’s Republic of China in the context of the 2008 Olympic Games. With contributions from Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo and other reformists, the book spotlights key areas for human rights reform that could represent a possible great leap forward for the people of China.
Torture[7] (The New Press, 2005)
The question of cruel and unusual treatment has taken on new urgency in the United States and around the world. Torture features twelve essays by leading thinkers and experts ranging over history and continents, offering a nuanced, up-to-the-minute exploration of this wrenching topic.
Maybe she’ll be writing on Gaza or Ukraine soon? Or maybe the pre-Covid Hong Kong uprisings…I’ll wait.
Seriously, F these people. These are the profiteers of your loss of freedom. You have been warned of them and others like them for 65 years, now. They are starting to die-off and many are not going gently.
No rating service can be separated from the biases of the people who run it. The biggest lie of recent years was that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian plant. Steven Brill, one of the co-founders of Newsguard, endorsed that hoax on CNBC.
Are they rating the blog or you because of your occasional visit to Fox?
Is there a law that you have to participate in their questionnaire, if not why would anyone? This would be a great topic to bring to Fox? I like many had no idea there was a News Guard.
NewsGuard now sounds like the Southern Poverty Law Center. Seems they will need to get sued for slander or libel soon. SPLC went off the reservation years ago and has done untold harm to many groups simply for having a different view but are now SLPC hate groups.
Has NewsGuard published its financial data and where its main revenue comes from.
The best cure for something like this is a Republican Administration and elimination of funding and some very pointed investigations from congress and a totally revamped justice dept. and then action taken.
Sadly, as we have seen once before, simply having a Republication administration will not reform the DOJ or any agency in dire need of reform or extinction. The rot is rooted deep within the fruit. To mix metaphors, the cancer has metathesized.
GEB,
Back in the day, the SPLC did good things.
Now it, like News Guard, is nothing more than a money racket.
UpstateFarmer-my point exactly. That’s the “went off the reservation bit”
Nyet, nyet, Soviet!
Well worth your time to read Mr Turley’s comments. I follow all your publications that I find.
Apparently I am not able to think for myself. Thanks, NewsGuard!
Ironically, News Gaurd, doesn’t label themselves as “Leftist” which they most certainly are! As for “liberals” there are very few classical liberal’s around anymore. The vast majority are actually “Leftist” and worse, Far Leftist otherwise known as “Progressive’s!”
And Leftist is actually a cover for being Marxist, Socialist, & Communist! In short, they are Anti-God, A moral, degenerates!
When the republic finally deteriorates and falls, here you have identified their ideologies. We will know who to thank. It appears to be coming fast and is so demoralizing to watch a once-great country go down in flames. Keith Olbermann and Joy Reid come to mind as well as Obama, chief America-haters and haters of conservatism, though loved by millions. Quite unbelievable.
As for “liberals” there are very few classical liberal’s around anymore.
First they proudly labeled themselves communists (Marx never invented or used the word “Marxism”)
When communism’s history associated the word with evil, they started calling themselves Marxists.
When Marxism’s history associated that name with evil, they started calling themselves socialists.
When socialism’s history associated that name with evil, they started calling themselves liberals.
Now that liberalism’s history associated with the evil of all the previous name, they call themselves “progressives”.
At the core, they’re still communists and Marxists with a bad Joe Biden/Nancy Pelosi face lift.
Professor Turley,
Your site is not a news site. Does News guard differentiate between news and opinion?
I agree with most of our your column, but I think it is a bit disingenuous to act like your site is not conservative leaning. What percentage of your articles source their news content from conservative news sites vs. liberal sites? That would be an easy proxy for determining where bias comes in. Oftentimes your perspective is misguided due to the inaccurate reporting that comes from your biased political sources.
I don’t think that warrants NewsGuard’s inquiry, but I think it is important for your readers to fact check your primary sources before taking what they say at face value
You must not be reading often because he most certainly quotes liberal news sources.
Anonymous feckless coward: I agree with most of our your column, but I think it is a bit disingenuous to act like your site is not conservative leaning… Oftentimes your perspective is misguided due to the inaccurate reporting that comes from your biased political sources.
Is conservative different than constitutional in your world? How so?
And would you find Turley’s writings more palatable to your tastes if they were from unbiased political sources like CNN, Joy Reid, etc.
BTW, you don’t have to be a coward quaking and posting Anonymously from the shadows – unless you prefer to not have a username that would build a history for you here.
Signed,
Old Airborne Dog
I am a conservative and I read your column on a regular basis and I know that my views and your views don’t necessarily jive all the time. But what I like, and respect, about you is that you tell the truth no matter where it falls…thank you!
What’s the point of rating you? I don’t see any advertising?
It isn’t obvious? Two related reasons: To do reputational damage, discouraging new visitors to the site. Enough attrition of readers will have a strong tendency to cause an informational site to disappear, whether or not it is directly supported by advertising. Once NewsGuard can show that its rating has negatively impact readership, it can make a strong case for the owner of the site to pay them money to implement their “suggestions”. As another commenter implied, they’re attempting to make Turley “an offer he can’t refuse”…
I think the purpose is to block the site. Newsguard gets employers to use their blacklist to block access to sites on corporate internet. Can’t have their employees reading the wrong thing.
I remember espn watching employees who accessed deadspin.
Sounds like NewsGuard fits perfectly with typical American enterprises of the past forty years. It produces absolutely nothing of value, generates (steals) wealth for it’s top executives, and serves no useful purpose to the American people.
Your comment makes me think of Rick Wilson and The Lincoln Project
Great work if you can get it. You nailed it. Question: who watches the watchers?
The watch watchers.
Keep the faith Professor