The Media Research Center took a brief break from its yearslong war on NewsGuard for pointing out the shoddiness of right-wing media by undermining its own narrative, courtesy of a July 31 post by Catherine Salgado:
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and so-called media ratings firm NewsGuard halted its usual anti-free speech activity to “fact check” leftist fake news.
NewsGuard’s Reality Check published a fact check of leftist hysteria about the much-maligned Project 2025 on July 29. The firm identified and called out four false narratives surrounding The Heritage Foundation-led project, pushed by high-profile leftists, including Vice President Kamala Harris and actor Mark Hamill.
NewsGuard specifically called out Harris for claiming that Project 2025 proves President Donald Trump “intends to cut Social Security and Medicare” if elected. NewsGuard countered, “The Project 2025 policy playbook, titled ‘Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,’ does not mention any proposed changes to Social Security.”
NewsGuard continued its debunking, stating the project does not aim to ban Muslims from entering America. It “includes no mention of a Muslim ban or any religion- or ethnicity-specific entry ban.” NewsGuard added that the conspiracy theory that women, under Project 2025, would be forced to track their periods apparently originated on a satire site.
Salgado then tried to clean up by insisting the old narrative is still in force and repeating its discredited attacks:
Despite the honest fact checking described above, NewsGuard usually displays strong bias in favor of leftist outlets. In December 2023, MRC researchers found for the third year running that NewsGuard gave an average “credibility” rating of 91/100 for “left” and “lean left” outlets, versus 65/100 on average for “right” and “lean right” outlets.
The MRC eventually got back on narrative, starting with a Sept. 19 post by Joseph Vazquez listing NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill as among this with “Objectivity-Wrecking Ties to Democrats” because he has donated to Democratic candidates. (No mention, of course, of the MRC’s donations in kind to Donald Trump and other Republicans wrecking its objectivity.) An Oct. 25 post by Tom Olohan noting Free speech Week rehashed its partisan attacks:
Organizations purporting to promote “media literacy” such as NewsGuard and Ad Fontes routinely work to demonize right-leaning media outlets.
MRC Free Speech America Associate Editor Joseph Vazquez has exposed NewsGuard’s rampant bias in three successive studies, showing that the media ratings firm has routinely granted highly favorable ratings to left-leaning news outlets.
The MRC finally served up some newish material in an Oct. 29 post by Salgado cheering on right-wing lawfare against NewsGuard:
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have taken leftist, biased media ratings firm NewsGuard to task for its ties to the Biden-Harris administration.
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter to NewsGuard Co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz on Oct. 25, according to a committee press release. Comer asked the online ratings firm for all documentation related to past or present potential partnerships with and grants from the federal government. “The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is continuing to investigate the impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns,” Comer wrote.
[…]Comer continued: “Our investigation has particularly focused on abuse of government authority to censor American citizens under the guise of protecting them from so-called misinformation.”
NewsGuard previously provided information to the committee on its contracts with the Department of Defense (DOD), the press release on Comer’s letter noted, but the collusion doesn’t stop there. Comer’s letter explained that NewsGuard admitted in a briefing to working with the leftist anti-free speech interagency Global Engagement Center (GEC) and the Cyber National Mission Force within the U.S. Cyber Command. GEC funded NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, which deliberately blacklist conservative sites from ad revenue. NewsGuard even coordinated with a foreign government entity, the Joint Research Centre of the European Union.
The letter included a list of requests for documents related to potential NewsGuard collusion with the DOD, the State Department — including the infamous censorship-funding GEC — and any other federal entity.
Vazquez cheered out more anti-NewsGuard lawfare in a Nov. 15 post:
Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr utilized Media Research Center analysis to put Big Tech and so-called media ratings firm NewsGuard on notice.
Carr sent a letter Wednesday to the respective CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple accusing them of “improper conduct” in silencing Americans’ exercising free speech on political, religious and scientific issues. Carr specifically ordered these tech giants to acquiesce to surrendering any documents related to their work with “the Orwellian named NewsGuard” given its history of targeting right-leaning websites by bullying their advertisers.
Moreover, Carr excoriated the CEOs for participating in “a censorship cartel that included not only technology and social media companies but advertising, marketing, and so-called ‘fact checking’ organizations as well as the Biden-Harris Administration itself” to suppress viewpoints, harm websites’ profitability and delist them by smearing them as “high risk” to advertisers.
Carr relied on MRC studies to make his case that Big Tech platforms working with NewsGuard raise questions about whether this relationship constitutes “good faith” actions within the meaning of the Section 230 liability protections in the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that they enjoy.
[…]Carr called for the ties of leftist ratings firms like NewsGuard, the government and Silicon Valley to be dismantled: “This censorship cartel is an affront to Americans’ constitutional freedoms and must be completely dismantled. Americans must be able to reclaim their right to free speech. Indeed, our democracy depends on freedom of expression.”
The fact that Carr is relying on shoddy and biased MRC “studies” to smear NewsGuard should disqualify this effort as being credible.
Salgado returned to pile on even more lawfare in a Dec. 10 post:
It looks like the Federal Communications Commission under Brendan Carr won’t be the only agency looking to tear down the government-backed dystopian activities of website traffic cop NewsGuard.
Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson issued a statement Dec. 2 joining his colleague Commissioner Melissa Holyoak in urging the agency “to investigate online platforms for unfair acts or practices relating to their opaque, unpredictable processes for banning users and censoring content.” Ferguson stipulated that “we must vigorously enforce the antitrust laws against any platforms found to be unlawfully limiting Americans’ ability to exchange ideas freely and openly.” Part of Ferguson’s antitrust push includes cracking down on unlawful, facilitated advertiser boycotts of right-leaning outlets by leftist media sentinels like NewsGuard and the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative.
“NewsGuard ‘goes to great lengths to create the appearance of nonpartisanship and objectivity,” but it seems to give a free pass to deceptive and biased news coverage by major left-leaning outlets,” Ferguson rebuked. “NewsGuard is, of course, free to rate websites by whatever metric it wants. But the antitrust laws do not permit third parties to facilitate group boycotts among competitors.”
Salgado didn’t explain how, exactly, it’s “dystopian” to point out false and misleading claims made by right-wing media, let alone how doing so makes NewsGuard “leftist” whwen it has never disputed the accuracy of its observations.