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.
Jonathan: Looks like the chickens have come to roost! Some accountability for your “Res Ipsa Loquitor”. Why should you be the exception to the rule? For a long time you have used your own rating system–labeling MSNBC and the NY Times, among others, as “liberal” or “left”. Funny, but you don’t don’t use similar labels, like “conservative”, to refer to Fox News where you work–or the NY Post where you frequently post columns. That has not been lost on your readers.
Now along comes NewsGuard that joins GDI in labeling Fox News, where you work, as “unreliable”. Two years ago GDI labeled the NY Post as one of the “riskiest sites”. Why? Because GDI points out that the Post’s “biased articles cherry pick their facts, omit relevant information, make unsubstantiated claims, and/or use logical fallacies”. The tabloid Post uses fact-free sensationalist headlines to only elicit an emotional response from its readers.
Here is an example of your own biased and misleading reporting. Your column yesterday [“German Publisher Stops all Printing of Vance Book”] called the decision by a publisher in Germany as “the left equivalent of book burning”. It turns out your claim was FALSE. UB is publishing a German language edition of JD Vance’s book. Although you claim to make corrections to your columns will you do that in this case? Haven’t seen it yet.
When you write columns with biased or misleading information you can now expect NewsGuard to call you out. For years your columns have mostly flown under the radar of mainstream media. Those days are over. If you don’t like the heat in the kitchen there is a simple solution. Get out!
To me it looks like the world economic forum, a bunch of unelected fat cats meet and talk about how they want us to live.
Independent Bob,
Yeah! That is a good way to sum it up.
You make some good points, but Jonathan’s role has evolved from being a commentator into a signaling device for issue focus. Before his famous testimony at the first Trump Congressional Impeachment Inquiry where he got much focus, his site attracted a different crowd, more law educated readership and comments and his site changed tone by becoming more thought provocative. I agree that the qualifier of “book burning” was a bit strong, but nothing to call censor or anything of the likes. I’m a provocateur myself. I know commentators have mostly changed, and with this the attendance, those who come just to control. I like the fact that Jonathan’s site has been very patient with me, it’s one of the rare sites where I can say about what I please and in length. At Fox, my capacity to talk has been reduced by many lines,
I can barely write more than 500 words now on Fox’s website and my comments often don’t publish with the “your comment failed to publish, please retry”…. yes, retry a thousand time until you get paralysis to your fingers. People have a right to change. Jonathan’s probably did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020, but I did. Yet this year I’m not voting Trump nor Harris, in fact I plan to cancel my Presidential vote. Yet, it’s not impossible Jonathan may.
Obviously, machines like Newsguard are cancers born from Covid and they are terminations to democracy. You can police many things, but this is increasingly the government subcontracting our Rights to private industry censors.
@Dennis
Thank you for the brilliant satire you provide us with everyday, for years. 😂 We all need a laugh, and you are better than the old-fashioned email forwards. Love it, your joke posts are the best. 👍🏼🙄🙄 You know we all appreciate having to scroll through 100 of them a day. How much do humorists make these days?
When you were at your little Kamala party, did you show all your Turley blog comments to the other commies? Did you sense that they were avoiding you when you did?
Anonymous: Before I run off to another Kamala Harris fundraiser tonight thought I’d mention that I did show around some of my comments to Turley’s columns to my friends. They gave me a thunderous round of applause and shouted “Keep up the good work Den! I am a modest guy so all I could do was smile. By the way, we raised six figures for Harris last night. Should do better tonight. How’s your fundraising for the Trumpster going?
Just when I think you can’t get more delusional, you always manage to surprise me. Well done!
How were you able to “show around” your comments when the “White Duds for Harris” was a Zoom event?
Dennis, I have not contributed to a political candidate in my entire life. I have no plans to start now.
But Trump fundraising is doing fine.
I am sure your friends in your bubble think your comments are great.
I am more interested in the views of intelligent people I actually respect.
Though Frankly I do not post comments and then show them to others seeking accolades.
I have earned plenty of real honors in my life – and I mostly do not care about them and did not do the things I have done seeking the approval of others.
Dennis -= simple question – yes or no
Is the Joe Biden that you have been claiming was so great the past 4 years mentally competent ?
If he is – then why aren’t you angry he was forced out ?
If he isn’t – why haven’t you apologized ?
Regardless, why should anyone trust your judgement or that of your “friends” ?
Your rushing out to raise money for Harris who is little more than a crazier but more mentally competent puppet for Obama.
No matter what you can not escape fromt he mess you have made by waiting until the last minute and then blaming it all on Biden.
You foist a failure on the country in 2020, and you are working hard to inflict another on us in 2024.
Have you no shame ?
Maduro has just won the election in Venezuela by 10% – this is despite exit polls saying his opponent won by 30% and pre-election polls showing Maduro down by 30%.
Are Venezuelan’s supposed to just stand by and accept that results ?
What are the voters of Venezuela entitled to do in response to an official result that is obvious fraud ?
Maduro’s oponent has called on the military to step in – is she Wrong – is she staging a coup or is it Maduro that has staged a coup ?
Maduro made a huge mistake – he allowed in person voting on election day – that means that exit polling can relatively accurately measure the election. Had he instituted early voting and mailin voting – then exit polls would only be measuring a segment of the electorate.
This is just another of the reasons that mailin voting makes election fraud easier. It destroys many of the checks we have on election integrity.
Regardless what are the people of Venezeula to do ?
The election is over the official results have been posted.
It is likely the courts will confirm Maduro’s election.
So what do the opponents of Maduro do about an election that has clearly been stolen ?
Are they allowed to protest ?
To storm the capitol ?
To attempt to thwart certification ?
They have already called for a military coup – can they do that ?
It is certain that most anything they do is illegal.
Are venezeulans required to just roll over and accept the results ?
How is it Dennis that we can tell the difference between an allegedly stolen election in Venezeuala and an allegedly stolen one in the US ?
Then what would you do with your patheic, worthless life, Denny?
I have no problem with Newsgaurd – I rater them as “Unreliable” – so I do not give a schiff what they say about anyone.
If NewGaurd calls Turley out – I would treat that as the equivalent of getting an award.
When you attract the attention of left wing nuts – that proves what you are writing matters.
turley.org has approximately 100M unique viewers. THAT rates Turley.org highly.
There is no need for Newsmax.
Expecting NewsGuard to accurately assess turley.org is like expect you to post something that is factually correct.
Not going to happen.
You brighten my day every day.
I come here and there is nearly always a post or two from Dennis.
Every post is completely oblivious to the real world,
Every post is completely oblivious to your own errors in the past.
I am hard pressed to think about when you have ever been right about anything of consequence
Even a stopped watch is right twice a day – you can not manage that.
Have you ever corrected any of the mistakes you have made ?
Regardless it just cheers me up to see that someone can be so completely clueless and so completely oblivious of their own cluelessness.
“It turns out your claim was FALSE. UB is publishing a German language edition of JD Vance’s book.”
That is false.
“Although you claim to make corrections to your columns will you do that in this case?”
Will you? (Or will pigs fly first?)
The Most Chilling Words Today: I’m Uncle Roger and I am Here to Rate you
Uncle Roger Rates Cheapest Woman Ever. It’s not Kamala Harris. She cooks lasagna. Children don’t even like it.
Never heard of NewsGuard. Just visited their website and it appears a prospective user has to download their app on the Apple iOS store, where “in-app purchase” is required for their service. Apple iOS app users rate them 2.7 out of 5 stars. They gave the app free trial option abysmal reviews. As we all know Professor Turley provides his services gratis.
Steven Brill’s comments on CNBC regarding the NY Post Hunter Biden laptop story were all one needs to know to rate the veracity of NewsGuard. No doubt they think Venezuela’s elections yesterday were fair and trustworthy, with any critical comments of the Ernesto Maduro regime “a hoax”. Most of Latin American leaders denounce Maduro’s fraudulent victory. Most Americans acknowledge that the 2020 elections were rigged by the MSM, and the Democrats concealed Joseph Biden’s neurocognitive impairment as well as the Hunter laptop story. Had American voters known the truth beforehand, Biden would have never seen the outside of his basement
Perhaps NewsMax should offer their “expert” ratings from within Caracas, and sell their services for a fee to starving, exasperated Venezuelans.
“My personal opinion is there’s a high likelihood this story is a hoax, maybe even a hoax perpetrated by the Russians again.”
– Steven Brill CNBC
Estovir,
I have heard of News Guard, but until today, I did not know it was an app to download.
They should be ignored.
Advertisers know their consumer base and will run ads on sites that get them noticed. No one should take some self anointed rating site word for what they say.
“Apparently from where NewsGuard reviewers sit, I am a de facto conservative or libertarian who needs to wear a digital bell to warn others.”
As a lifelong non ideological pragmatist, I am quite accustomed to this phenomenon after decades of getting attacked from BOTH ends of the ideological spectrum — left and right — by people who absolutely insist and a person MUST be one of the two — either “liberal” or “conservative.”
In my view, people that subscribe to ideology are one-dimensional thinkers — linear-brained goofballs who make the two-dimensional inhabitants of Edwin Abbott’s Flatland seem like free-thinkers. They don’t even recognize the existence of a second dimension, much less a third or fourth.
In my view, these artificial constructs are a plague on humanity worse than the “black death” (bubonic plague) because they kill the mind just as surely as a plague kills the body. One can get various forms of protection from physical plagues, but there is very little protection from mind-plagues like “liberalism” or “conservatism.”
If you don’t believe me, just do as I’m doing here and denounce ideology, liberal AND conservative, and see what happens. You will be attacked by every manner of intellectual fascist and mental LOSER known to exist, much the way democrats and republicans make war on third-party candidates.
It’s obvious that those at NewsGuard think of themselves as the new Twitter. Would any of us be wrong if we suspect that NewsGuard is taking its orders directly from the Whitehouse, the FBI and the CIA just like Twitter. It is undoubtedly a new propaganda division of the government without any attempt to formulate it with a legislative requirement. This is a blatant threat to Professor Turley saying you better shut up if you know whats good for you. Somehow these same people lay the term of fascist on Donald Trump. It’s like the farce of A
Midsummer Nights Dream thats found its way to reality.
TiT,
But what are they going to do to the good professor?
Give him a low rating?? Oooooo! Scary! Like anyone really cares what they think?
It is not like all his advertisers are going to flee . . . oh! Wait! There are none!
Actually they may have shot themselves in the foot. Their sudden, strange sense of timing, may have just skyline themselves to be the next GDI, that no one takes seriously.
They should be ignored.
I hope that this “shiny object” distraction does not take your focus off of some of the other threats to the rule of law. While the defence of free speech and thought can fully occupy even a Jonathan Turley, much else is afoot.
NewsGuard is potentially a far more dangerous version of censorship by disinformation than the fraudulent Mainstream Media “fact checkers” like the Washington Post’s Glen Kessler and the execrable Snopes. Those fact checkers have been somewhat hobbled by their virulent bias and outright falsehoods in service to Soviet Democrat politicians and their mouthpieces finally going just too far for many Americans to be able to ignore. These media “fact checkers” have become part of the reason that Americans (and people in other nations) regard the mainstream news media and commentators with far less trust than they have in elected politicians.
NewsGuard takes the media’s grifting “fact checking” operation in the service of the Soviet Democrat party to a different level. They do more than just tell the public (that has many sources of information to draw from) who they should patronize – they tell advertisers and other commercial entities which media outlets they should avoid spending their money at because NewsGuard rates them as untrustworthy.
NewsGuard and those who control it have the same credibility and earned reputation for impartiality as Glen Kessler et al and Snopes. Which is exactly zero. But companies deciding which media outlets they want their brand and their advertising to appear in are probably not aware of that. Or equally likely, they know NewsGuard are grifters, but accepting their ratings exactly as they accept the ratings of the SPLC on who the racists, extremists, etc are is considered to be a good business decision.
As the line goes, the book 1984 was not supposed to be an operations manual for the propagandists of the Soviet Democrat party. Winston, the revolution will be complete when the language is perfect…
Just one more propaganda machine. The reincarnation of Joseph Goebbels.
The thought police are all honest and trustworthy, just ask them. Fact checkers were not needed, until the truth started getting out. Hitler would be so proud of them. People tattling on each other, and destroying reputations, because they don’t think like everyone else. Ain’t demutopia wonderful?
100 DAYS to go! 👨💼 Trump 🦅 | 🥴 Harris 😵
Today is July 29th-> August(①)-> September(②)-> October(③)-> November(④) Tuesday 5th-> 2024 | Election Day 🇺🇸
Professor Turley is a Man of Principle which immediately indicts him in the eyes of the Left, Progressives, Liberals, and those who cannot abide the fact there are such treasured people among us and which are exactly the kind of people we need practicing law, writing commentary, teaching, and enforcing the law as Police Officers, Prosecutors, Judges, and Justices along with those least likely to have any such people in their membership…politicians and modern day journalists.
Professor Turley makes no bones about his being a “Liberal”, a Democrat, and having voted for Democrats.
We as a society are better off for having courageous Men as the Professor and they should be praised not attacked, demeaned, slandered, or have their integrity and ethics impugned.
I do not always agree with the Professor’s politics but I highly respect him and hang on his every word.
He is the epitome of the virtuous embodiment of what we all should strive for.
The reason the Left hates him….simple….he appears on FOX, he practices the “Honest Man Concept”, and he tells it as he sees it looking at matters from his deep knowledge of the Law, Legal Tenets of Conduct, and the Constitution.
What more needs saying to show what is wrong and down right evil conduct by those who challenge his views, this blog, and his reputation.
For the record….I am a Republican, Conservative, voted for Trump twice and shall vote for him in November, believe in the 1st and 2nd Amendment, and very much oppose the Democrat Agenda and those that seek to destroy traditional values as is going on every day the Democrats are in office at any level of government.
Isn’t it odd that Professor Turley can earn such praise and admiration from me and those like me even though we have different views on some topics but see things the same on other very important issues…freedom of speech, limits on government power, the Constitution, and individual freedom.
Newsguard, Facebook fact checkers, the former Twitter managers, the government’s censors, and social media content controllers can all kiss our grits!
I stand with Turley….without let or hesitation.
Ralph Chappell,
Great comment.
Let’s suppose you have a store. You have a knack for merchandising. People find your store valuable and interesting. They willingly come and shop there. Perfectly legal relationships between buyer and seller. One day some dodgy characters show up and offer to sell you insurance against hazards, like say, arson, or assault, or roughing up the customers. We all know what to call this.
Now let’s say you run an opinion site. You have large enough following that one would be led to conclude that your service is useful and people willingly watch it. You monetize it by offering advertizing space. This is a legal private relationship between two perfectly legal entities. Now a third party decides to insert itself into this relationship by telling the advertisers they would be subject to something the equivalent of the arson or assault in the first example if they continue advertising on your site. It doesn’t matter that the government is involved or not. Don’t even refer to free speech. Do people have trouble seeing the equivalence?
If News Guard wishes to be a rating system, it must adopt a rating system that includes historical inaccuracies that need to be corrected with time That would require media outfits like the Washington Post and the NYT to start from the bottom of the ratings, permitting time to fix their former lack of concern for the truth.
S. Meyer,
HA!
That would be awesome!
We all know, neither of those news outlets are worth the paper they are written on.
Any peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine would be irrelevant because such an agreement cannot supersede international law, which has already defnined the boundaries. Does anyone else realize this, or am I the only one?
You’re the only one.
Then I guess I’m in a league of my own. Please excuse me while I go bask in my superiority.
If there was a peace agreement, the troops on either side would find the international law irrelevant as long as the fighting stopped.
NewsGuard and the illiberal progressives who administer it do not want their propagandized followers happening onto sites that might cause them to question the collectivists’ narrative. The mission is to confine them securely within the herd and distant from their likely gaining a sense of their own individualism and self-worth.
Ron A. Hoffman,
Individual thought is an anathema to them. This is why they need indoctrination at all levels of education.
You seem to think that they are forcing people to adhere to their ratings somehow. You do understand that these ratings organizations just provide information that you can ignore or follow based on your liberty to choose, right?
Conservative sites do this these rating system method all time. Ratings based on voting records, adherence to an ideology, ranking based on tax burden, freedom index, etc. is their mission to confine others within their herds as well?
Turley’s gripe with ratings is only being mentioned because his site is being rated and NewsGuard is providing a means for others to judge for themselves if Turley’s site is what it claims to be. Just as conservative or libertarian sites offer “freedom indexes.”
NewsGuard is of course not “forcing” people to adhere to its conclusions, but you too cannot deny that it’s wholly capable of manipulating them. For reasons Turley famously articulates, no one should ignore what are the worst propensities of self-appointed and self-described rating organizations that effectually serve the censorship beast.
Turley’s site claims to be one that is all in for free speech. I expect NewsGuard will give it it’s highest rating.
Whether NewsGuard “manipulates” anything it’s still wholly up to the users to decide for themselves what to do with the information.
Just because something is possible it does NOT mean it’s what will happen. There is a lot of assumption behind the skepticism with rating organizations. Which is why it’s ultimately the decision of the user to choose how to best interpret the information and that is all they are providing. But Turley seems to falsely imply that NewsGuard is censoring the speech of others because they are ranking organizations based on criteria that is not only open to scrutiny, but it’s transparent. That’s not censorship. That’s an aversion to being scrutinized so that others may decide for themselves if the ratings do coincide with the claims from sites and organizations.
Turley can claim whatever he wants. But there is always going to be a third party critic or an independent critic of the site and determine if it is indeed a free speech site. In a free speech world that is always going to be present.
Given NewsGuard’s nine standards of “credibility” and “transparency”* and its five scoring grades ranging from 0% (“Proceed with Maximum Caution”) to 100% (“High Credibility”), all of Turley’s readers can expect nothing less than the highest NewsGuard score. That is of course so long as NewsGuard’s criteria is indeed completely objective and neutral.
In a subsequent post Turley welcomes the opportunity for further discussions with NewsGuard over media rating systems and their potential for furthering censorship. NewsGuard should take him up on it just on the outside chance a rating system can be developed that does not negatively impact free speech.
*Does not repeatedly publish false or egregiously misleading content
Gathers and presents information responsibly
Has effective practices for correcting errors
Handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly
Avoids deceptive headlines
Website discloses ownership and financing
Clearly labels advertising
Reveals who’s in charge, including possible conflicts of interest
The site provides the names of content creators, along with either contact or biographical information
“That is of course so long as NewsGuard’s criteria is indeed completely objective and neutral.”
They use the same criteria on everyone. Even Turley admits he knew that some conservative sites scored better than liberal sites.
All that matters is what people choose to decide what to do with the information. Because NewsGuard is exercising frees speech to opine and judge Turley. Turley seems to falsely conflate ratings with censorship. He’s clearly wrong.
NewsGuard made a tactical error approaching Turley in an effort to suggest there might be anything awry with his credibility and transparency. I expect NewsGuard knows it and now regrets it. All that matters now is what people come to think of NewsGuard. Turley is clearly correct.
Wrong. You seem to think that someone else seems to think something, which is wrong. What newsguard is is a propaganda outlet designed to let the mouth-breathers identify as informed via its bogus authority appeal.
newsguard exists to allow over-propagandized democrats confirm their biases.
Dear Mr. Turley, keep up the great work!!People like you and those of us who take a few minutes to agree or disagree with either you or with someone sharing their thoughts must be very frightening to this terrible group. It is okay to have a disagreement and work it out in a civil manner.
“I cannot find any information on the site that would signal to readers . . .” — claims the twit from NewsGuard.
How then, pray tell, did you conclude that JT’s posts have “a conservative or libertarian perspective”?
Do those “gatekeepers” really believe that we are that blind or that incapable of thinking for ourselves?
Sam,
They want those who are on their plantation to stay on the plantation. To keep them blind and individual thought cannot be allowed. If they cannot get rid of the 1stA, then they will try to cancel anyone who goes against the narrative. We have seen this from the Twitter Files.
the schutzstaffel is watching you -how history repeats itself- this is orwellian from my experience
“Do those “gatekeepers” really believe that we are that blind or that incapable of thinking for ourselves?”
They rightly (unfortunately) think that a huge segment of the population lacks wither the ability or the will to function cognitively. The terrible truth is that NewsGuard (and their many allies) see that condition as laudable, and have made it their mission to transform the rest of us into willing idiots.
“They rightly (unfortunately) think that . . .”
That might be true.
But then how did the NG gatekeepers escape those afflictions?
I’ve been concerned they’d eventually knock on the Professor’s door since Biden was elected. Thank you so much for what you do, Professor and all.
Unfettered, eventually they’ll be stopping all of us on the street if we are ‘out of line’.
They can try, James. I’ll introduce myself to them using my pronouns fu/fo✊
Today I add a little collaterally-related research I did yesterday re: MEDIA and its incessant and collective effort to sway/influence us.
(censorship/selective fact/story focus, etc.)
This past week, media has focused on how much $$$ from billionaires has been contributed to Kamala Harris.
SO I researched the top billionaires contributing to Harris’ and Trump’s respective campaigns, and what industries/backgrounds they represent. This is what I found:
Top billionaires contributing to Harris/Democrats (EVERY ONE is connected to mass media/mass communications/social media):
Melinda/Bill Gates (Microsoft/mass communications/media)
Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn/communications)
Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna (cofounders of Facebook, now Meta) (not to mention Mark Zuckerberg’s role and massive contribution to 2020 Democratic “get-out-the-vote” effort)
Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Meta)
Michael Bloomberg (Media financial news empire)
Reed Hastings (Media -Netflix)
Conversely, top billionaires contributing to Trump/Republicans:
Peter Thiel (Silicon Valley)
Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX)
Scott Sheffield (Oil)
Steve Schwarzman (finance)
The Adelsons (casinos)
The Uihleins (packing/shipping)
Jose Fanj (sugar)
Woody Johnson (pharmaceuticals/J&J)
Diana Hendricks (roofing industry)
Robert Bigelow (hotels)
Linda McMahon (wrestling)
Geoffrey Palmer (real estate)
NOTICE THE LACK OF MEDIA/SOCIAL MEDIA/MASS COMMUNICATIONS in Trump’s billionaire supporters.
(I am not citing sources because they are too many, but you can individually verify this list. thanks)
correction: Jose Fanjul (sugar)
Lin,
Thank you for your research.
That is interesting.
Exactly, through media and the education complex they are destroying the American mind. The proof is in the pudding over the past 30 years or so.
The left has to lie because everything it has said it can/will do has failed – everything.
“Roughly a week later, NewsGuard came knocking at my door.”
Nice blog you got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.
I would just tell them to f**k off and keep right on writing. I hope they reach out to me about my substack articles. Would love to answer their questions.