We’ve noted how Newsmax (like the Media Research Center) has joined in spreading right-wing narratives attacking website-rating service NewsGuard for pointing out that right-wing websites aren’t very reliable. The narrative-parroting in a March 10 article by Theodore Bunker:
NewsGuard, a left-wing media monitoring organization which claims to rate the credibility of news websites, was awarded nearly $750,000 from the Department of Defense in 2021 according to publicly available records.
The revelation comes in the latest “Twitter Files” post by Matt Taibbi.
In a series of posts detailing internal communications among Twitter executives, Taibbi suggests a collaboration of government and the company of what appears to be a coordinated effort to censor or slant information available to the public and individuals — particularly conservatives.
[…]NewsGuard defended the contract, saying it was not “government funded.”
As we pointed out when the Media Research Center hyped this same talking point, receiving a government contract to perform a specific service does not equal being government funded. Nevertheless, Newsmax let a right-winger rant about it, as documented in a March 12 article by Eric Mack:
Former Amb. Ric Grenell called out NewsGuard’s taking government contracts to potentially demonetize conservative speech and Biden administration dissent.
“Look, I see what’s happening with NewsGuard: They’re trying to be the referees, and instead of really calling out misinformation, which I think the State Department could do, they’re calling out dissenting information,” Grenell told Newsmax’s “The Count.” “They’re trying to figure out who is against the narrative that the political types in Washington, D.C., want to push.
“This is how regimes control the narrative. This is how they control the media. And what’s happening right now with NewsGuard is that they are absolutely a far-left organization taking taxpayer dollars and finding ways to manipulate the rating system and control Big Tech and all of the other tools of the media.
“And they’re trying to push out conservative media. They’re calling conservative media, you know, disinformation machines. We all know that that’s not true. It’s just dissenting information.”
Grenell and Mack didn’t mention that Newsmax is currently being sued by voting-tech company Dominion over disinformation it spread about the company.
Newsmax also gave right-winger Dennis Prager space to rant about NewsGuard after it dinged his PragerU for spreading misinformation (not that he’ll admit that’s what happened), as noted in a March 16 article by Jeremy Frankel:
PragerU, a nonprofit that creates videos promoting American values and distributes them on its website and on social media, has been targeted by leftist monitoring organizations such as NewsGuard for “disinformation.” NewsGuard uses its ratings system to pressure advertisers to boycott companies with which it disagrees. Most recently, video-streaming service JW Player bent to pressure and stopped servicing PragerU.
NewsGuard gave PragerU a red light, which indicates misinformation, for saying that the word “vaccine” has been “retranslated or reinterpreted,” and JW Player used NewsGuard as an excuse for ceasing to host PragerU, Prager said.
In response to host Rob Schmitt’s claim that the left wants to silence its opponents because it can’t handle opposing views, Prager said that the reason leftists protest when conservative speakers visit universities is that “we can undo in 90 minutes what they indoctrinate over four years; and, of course, they would never acknowledge that deep down, they know it.”
“Truth is far more powerful than lies,” Prager stated.
Frankel did not mention if Prager offered any evidence to disprove what NewsGuard said about the PragerU video. And Prager is certainly not going to admit that he’s trying to indoctrinate people too.
A March 28 article by Luca Cacciatore let a Republican congressman spout the usual right-wing talking points against NewsGuard:
Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., called out fact-checker NewsGuard on Monday for claiming to be independent yet targeting conservative networks and websites.
Dunn, a House Energy and Commerce Committee member, made the comments during a communications and technology subcommittee hearing focused on “preserving free speech and reining in Big Tech censorship.”
“The company NewsGuard defines itself as a journalism and technology tool that rates the credibility of news information and tracks online misinformation,” Dunn started.
“However, they are partnered with Big Tech, Big Pharma, the National Teachers Union, and even, government agencies,” he continued. “In fact, $750,000 went from the Department of Defense to NewsGuard in a government contract.”
Dunn repeated those talking points on Newsmax TV the next day, which Cacciatore dutifully transcribed:
Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., told Newsmax that the Department of Defense’s nearly $750,000 grant to fact-checker NewsGuard was “appalling.”
Joining ” Prime News” on Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee member also said the funding was clearly “a violation of the First Amendment.”
“We actually have a government grant funding a fact-checker to censor American citizens,” Dunn said. “That’s pretty appalling, and it certainly is a violation of the First Amendment.”
He said the government can neither censor free speech nor support companies like NewsGuard that do, calling it “axiomatic.”
Dunn’s comments arrive two days after he called out the fact-checker, which claims to be independent, for partnering with “Big Tech, Big Pharma, the National Teachers Union, and even government agencies.”
“Why is the Biden Admin using YOUR taxpayer dollars to pay for liberal-leaning NewsGuard to ‘fact-check’ & change your news?” the congressman asked on Twitter after the hearing.
Again, a government contract is not a “grant.” And Cacciatore refused to allow NewsGuard to respond in either article to Dunn’s biased attacks. And none of these articles proved anything NewsGuard has documented about conservative websites to be wrong.