{"id":1591392,"date":"2022-08-05T16:34:27","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T20:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1591392"},"modified":"2022-08-05T16:34:31","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T20:34:31","slug":"self-anointed-media-gatekeeper-lowers-free-beacon-quality-rating-after-critical-news-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/self-anointed-media-gatekeeper-lowers-free-beacon-quality-rating-after-critical-news-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Anointed Media Gatekeeper Lowers \u2018Free Beacon\u2019 Quality Rating After Critical News Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fself-anointed-media-gatekeeper-lowers-free-beacon-quality-rating-after-critical-news-coverage%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1591392&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/media\/\">Media<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Steven Brill&#8217;s NewsGuard demands answers. We don&#8217;t owe ya nothing!\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\"><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tNewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/chuck-ross\/\" title=\"Posts by Chuck Ross\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Chuck Ross<\/a> \u2022 August 5, 2022 4:30 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Three months after the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/media\/democrats-dominate-misinformation-firm-working-with-teachers-union\/\">revealed<\/a> the Democratic leanings of NewsGuard employees\u2014several of whom have worked in Democratic politics and contributed to Democratic candidates\u2014the self-anointed arbiter of media credibility docked the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>\u2018s score on its trust ratings.<\/p>\n<p>The company, which claims to &#8220;have no political axes to grind,&#8221; on Wednesday lowered the pro-freedom website&#8217;s score to 80 from 87.5 out of a possible 100 points, citing an alleged failure to disclose the company&#8217;s ownership in a &#8220;user-friendly&#8221; way. The <em>Free Beacon<\/em>\u2018s disclosure of its ownership by FreeBeacon LLC on its &#8220;Terms of Use&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/terms-of-use\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">page<\/a> is apparently insufficient.<\/p>\n<p>The revision came after NewsGuard analyst Macrina Wang, who as a student at Yale <a href=\"https:\/\/thenewjournalatyale.com\/2018\/10\/justice-unconfirmed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told a student publication<\/a>\u00a0the Brett Kavanaugh saga taught her that if she is ever sexually assaulted, &#8220;I won&#8217;t get the justice that I deserve,&#8221; asked the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> questions about its founding editor &#8220;David Continetti [sic]&#8221; and its &#8220;practices regarding distinguishing between news and opinion.&#8221; <em>Free Beacon<\/em> founding editor Matthew Continetti did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>NewsGuard general manager Matt Skibinski told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> the ratings change was &#8220;based entirely&#8221; on its &#8220;nine journalistic criteria and nothing else.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>NewsGuard sells subscriptions for its web browser plug-in to the general public, schools, and federal agencies to provide &#8220;trust ratings&#8221; on thousands of websites. The company also sells its services to corporations and ad agencies to ensure they do not advertise on sites that fail to meet NewsGuard&#8217;s arbitrary standards.<\/p>\n<p>The political leanings of NewsGuard&#8217;s employees raise questions about its claim to provide &#8220;apolitical&#8221; analysis of the websites it covers. A <em>Free Beacon<\/em> report in April indicated that a number of NewsGuard employees have worked in Democratic politics. And 20 NewsGuard executives and advisers contributed to Democrats since 2015, while only 6 gave to Republicans. Sarah Brandt, a NewsGuard analyst who coauthored the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>\u2018s &#8220;report card,&#8221; contributed both to Joe Biden&#8217;s and Pete Buttigieg&#8217;s presidential campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Free Beacon<\/em>, which according to NewsGuard &#8220;mostly adheres to basic standards of credibility and transparency,&#8221; also <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/teachers-union-taps-liberal-watchdog-to-help-students-identify-misinformation\/\">reported<\/a> in January that NewsGuard cofounder Steven Brill <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VEDPYBlQTTA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pushed<\/a> the conspiracy theory that emails from Hunter Biden&#8217;s abandoned laptop were fabricated by Russian agents.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My personal opinion is that there&#8217;s a high likelihood that this story is a hoax, maybe even a hoax perpetrated by the Russians again,&#8221; Brill told CNBC, citing NewsGuard&#8217;s rating of the <em>New York Post<\/em>, which in October 2020 exposed the contents of Biden&#8217;s laptop. Brill said the <em>Post<\/em> had &#8220;published irresponsible stuff in the past.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Media Steven Brill&#8217;s NewsGuard demands answers. We don&#8217;t owe ya nothing!\u00a0  NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill \/ Getty Images  Chuck Ross \u2022 August 5, 2022 4:30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1591392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1591392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1591392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1591392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1591392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1591392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1591392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}