Kurt Mahlburg - Intellectual Takeout
“We have a lot of questions for them, and because they get federal money, they fall under the jurisdiction of the House Oversight Committee,” he said.
"NewsGuard is a widely recognized media watchdog that rates news agencies on their reliability, transparency, and financial conflicts of interest. Via a web extension, the organization’s team of “expert journalists” provides outlets with “nutrition label” reports that rate outlets on a scale of 0–100 based on “a set of apolitical criteria of journalistic practice,” according to its website.
"NewsGuard’s stated purpose is to encourage the public to rely on trustworthy journalism and guard against the threat of misinformation.
"That’s all well and good—but what if NewsGuard is itself unreliable, non-transparent, or beset by financial conflicts of interest? If so, is there a watchdog watching the watchdog?
"This is the question being asked by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), who announced earlier this month that his committee is launching a probe into NewsGuard.
"Comer explained that the probe will look at “the impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns.”
"In a letter to the joint CEOs of NewsGuard Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, Comer wrote:
Our inquiry seeks documents on NewsGuard’s business relationships with government entities, its adherence to its own policies intended to guard against appearances of bias, how it tries to avoid and manage potential conflicts of interest arising from its investors and other influences, and actions that may have the impact of delegitimizing factually accurate information.
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