{"id":2268414,"date":"2024-06-15T09:45:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T13:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/congress-to-probe-media-rating-firm-newsguard-for-possible-taxpayer-funded-censorship\/"},"modified":"2024-06-15T09:53:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-15T13:53:23","slug":"congress-to-probe-media-rating-firm-newsguard-for-possible-taxpayer-funded-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/congress-to-probe-media-rating-firm-newsguard-for-possible-taxpayer-funded-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress to Investigate NewsGuard Over Potential Taxpayer-Funded Censorship"},"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\">16<\/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%2Fcongress-to-probe-media-rating-firm-newsguard-for-possible-taxpayer-funded-censorship%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=2268414&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--><p>The House Oversight Committee, led by \u2062Republican Rep. James Comer, is investigating \u2064NewsGuard, a for-profit company that evaluates the trustworthiness of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/breaking-73976-ballots-released-by-maricopa-county-56-1-for-donald-trump\/\" title=\"BREAKING: 73,976 Ballots Released By Maricopa County \u2014 56.1% FOR DONALD TRUMP\">news outlets<\/a> and is financially supported by the federal government. NewsGuard, having <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/michael-avenatti-sentenced-to-14-years-in-prison-for-financial-crimes\/\" title=\"Michael Avenatti Sentenced To 14 Years In Prison For Financial Crimes\">received substantial funds<\/a> from the Department of Defense and additional support from the State Department, provides rankings to advertisers to influence them against investing in media outlets tagged for spreading misinformation, which tends to\u200b include conservative platforms. Comer suggests that this might represent a bias and an \u2062implicit way of censoring conservative \u2064news. On the other hand, NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Crovitz argues that \u200ctheir \u2063ratings are impartial and essential in combating misinformation\u2063 from foreign entities \u200dand insists the company&#8217;s operations are misunderstood. \u2063Despite \u2062this, concerns are raised about NewsGuard&#8217;s transparency and\u2064 criterion\u200b basis, which appears influential \u2064and potentially biased towards\u2064 liberal media, according to Comer. The investigation \u2064aims to clarify these issues and ascertain if any <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/federal-court-places-trumps-bump-stock-ban-on-hold\/\" title=\"Federal Court Places Trump\u2019s Bump Stock Ban On Hold\">criminal laws<\/a> have been violated in the process.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p>The House Oversight Committee is probing whether a firm that purports to rate which news outlets are trustworthy is using federal funds to try to put conservative news outlets out of business.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. James Comer (R-KY) said the committee he chairs has opened an investigation into NewsGuard, a for-profit business with multiple ties to the federal government that makes lists of which news outlets it deems trustworthy, then sells those lists to advertisers.<\/p>\n<p>NewsGuard has received nearly a million dollars from the federal government, largely from the Department of Defense. The State Department also co-sponsored a \u201cCOVID-19 misinformation and disinformation\u201d tech challenge that gave a prize to NewsGuard.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisers often use the lists from NewsGuard to avoid doing business with companies that supposedly peddle in \u201cmisinformation,\u201d under the implied threat that liberals will boycott their products if they do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis appears to be a very biased, very unfair service that\u2019s getting federal funds. It could be another backdoor attempt at censoring conservative media outlets,\u201d Comer told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/video\/oan-contribution\/comer-to-investigate-newsguard-for-bias-and-censorship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">One America News<\/a>. \u201cWhat\u2019s their criteria that just happen to give networks like MSNBC and CNN tremendous grades, and then networks like OAN, Newsmax and Fox very poor grades?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to know why they\u2019re doing this, what the basis is for the criteria that they use to determine these grades. Because then they turn around and they offer their grades to advertisers, and this is a form of, I believe, trying to discourage advertisers from advertising on conservative networks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a concerted effort by the federal government to censor conservative media outlets,\u201d he added, saying the probe into NewsGuard would \u201cdetermine whether there\u2019s been any criminal laws broken.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gordon Crovitz, the company\u2019s co-CEO, told The Daily Wire in an email that the investigation is based on a \u201cmisunderstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe look forward to clarifying the misunderstanding by the committee about our work for the Defense Department,\u201d Crovitz said. \u201cOur work for the Pentagon has been solely related to hostile disinformation efforts by Russian, Chinese and Iranian government-linked operations targeting Americans and our allies. We also look forward to explaining that NewsGuard is the apolitical service rating news sources \u2014 the others are either digital platforms with their secret ratings or a left-wing partisan advocacy group. As a result, the Daily Caller outscores The Daily Beast, the Daily Wire outscores the Daily Kos, Fox News outscores MSNBC and The Wall Street Journal outscores the New York Times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite saying its mission is to provide \u201ctransparent tools to counter misinformation for readers,\u201d the company previously refused to allow The Daily Wire to view the data it sells to advertisers, even for a fee.<\/p>\n<p>NewsGuard said in a press release that it planned to \u201chelp\u201d the State Department by flagging COVID \u201choaxes.\u201d One of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/newsguard-runs-cover-for-terrorists-in-fact-check-of-ben-shapiro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201choaxes\u201d flagged by NewsGuard<\/a> was that COVID might have come from a Chinese lab, a scenario now viewed by U.S. agencies to be likely.<\/p>\n<p>Its mission \u2014 to have a small staff fact-check independently-reported stories on a wide variety of topics hours after their publication \u2014 inherently requires essentially enforcing conformity with authorities\u2019 previous statements, since it is not equipped to re-report every news story or match confidential sourcing.<\/p>\n<p>NewsGuard also has a partnership with a teachers union aimed at getting its public tool onto school computers. That browser plugin annotates search pages to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dhs-censorship-lead-believes-big-tech-has-moral-obligation-to-censor-the-right\/\" title=\"DHS Censorship Lead Believes Big Tech Has \"Moral Obligation\" to Censor the Right\">flag news stories<\/a> which should be avoided.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Wire and the Federalist are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/federal-judge-slaps-down-biden-administrations-attempt-to-dismiss-daily-wire-censorship-lawsuit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suing the State Department<\/a> for backing NewsGuard and other similar entities, alleging that it is promoting censorship technology designed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/federal-judge-slaps-down-biden-administrations-attempt-to-dismiss-daily-wire-censorship-lawsuit\/\" title=\"Federal Judge Rejects Biden Administration's Bid to Dismiss Daily Wire Censorship Lawsuit\">bankrupt domestic media outlets<\/a> with disfavored political opinions.<\/p>\n<p>The State Department responded by trying to have the federal lawsuit moved from Texas to the District of Columbia. But Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle denied the motion and recalled that \u201cno official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The investigation represents mounting danger for the media censorship industry, which has sought captive markets via legislation and through advertising associations like the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which forces advertisers to avoid outlets that promote \u201cmisinformation,\u201d creating a demand for someone to make that determination.<\/p>\n<p>The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), is investigating GARM for potentially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/misinformation-honcho-says-jim-jordan-is-assaulting-ad-industry-by-asking-for-documents-that-could-prove-partisan-bias\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">violating anti-trust laws<\/a>. The controversy has led mainstream consumer brands, selling the likes of candies, to second-guess whether their advertising departments roped them into divisive conduct, with one insider squirming that the companies \u201cwant to avoid any kind of public qualm that has a partisan signature like the plague.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The House Oversight Committee, led by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), is investigating NewsGuard, a company claiming to assess news credibility. The probe focuses on whether NewsGuard is targeting conservative outlets for closure using federal funds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":2268415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-2153563422-scaled-e1716395144768.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2268414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-2153563422-scaled-e1716395144768.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268414","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\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2268414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2268415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}