03/10/2020

Kansas City Public Library Joins NewsGuard to Combat Misinformation

The 10 Kansas City library locations become the first libraries to launch the news-literacy tool in Missouri

(Kansas City, Mo.—March 10, 2020) The Kansas City Public Library is teaming up with NewsGuard to help patrons sift through the news of today and sort fact from fiction – from reports about the upcoming election to updates about the novel coronavirus.

The collaboration with NewsGuard, a new venture founded by veteran journalists, provides the media literacy tool on all computers at the library’s 10 locations. With NewsGuard’s browser extension installed, library patrons have access to credibility ratings and “Nutrition Label” reviews of thousands of news and information websites, indicating which sources are generally trustworthy, and which have been found to spread misinformation.

“The internet is an everchanging resource with much good to offer our patrons,” said Joel Jones, Deputy Director of Library Services. “It is also a place with an abundance of unreliable resources that can spread misinformation. NewsGuard is a tool our patrons can use to help identify what is accurate from what is wrong.”

NewsGuard analysts, who are trained journalists with varied backgrounds, rate more than 4,000 websites based on nine basic, apolitical criteria of journalistic practice, including whether a site repeatedly publishes false content, regularly corrects or clarifies errors, avoids deceptive headlines, and whether it discloses ownership and management. This includes traditional news sites like The Kansas City Star’s website (which has a perfect score), along with blogs, opinion publications, and health information sources. Recently, NewsGuard has been tracking websites spreading false information about the novel coronavirus, which it lists in its Coronavirus Misinformation Tracking Center.

A score of less than 60 earns a “red” rating, while 60 or more earns a “green” rating, which indicates it is generally reliable. NewsGuard also identifies which sites are satire — for example, the popular publication The Onion — and distinguishes platforms, such as YouTube and Wikipedia. Those ratings show up next to links on social media and in search results.

“Citizens worldwide are inundated with information every day, with much of that information recently dealing with the novel coronavirus,” said Sarah Brandt, NewsGuard’s Vice President of News Literacy Programs. “Public libraries play the unique role of connecting every member of their community to quality information, especially about crucial topics such as health and wellness. NewsGuard appreciates the opportunity to help libraries with that task.”

With support from Microsoft and Oscar, which are sponsoring NewsGuard’s News Literacy Programs, NewsGuard makes its browser extension available free to public libraries. More than 700 libraries globally have already installed NewsGuard’s extension onto patron computers, though Kansas City Public Library is the first in Missouri.

“Rather than censoring news sites and telling patrons what they can or cannot read, librarians can use NewsGuard to provide patrons with context about their sources,” said NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Crovitz. “By reading NewsGuard’s Nutrition Label reviews of websites, which include detailed explanations of how a site fared on NewsGuard’s nine criteria, patrons will gain a better understanding of how to assess the credibility of information they encounter online.”

“Giving readers information about sources of information is what librarians have been doing since the invention of libraries,” added NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill. “That’s why these NewsGuard-library partnerships make so much sense and why they are now happening so quickly.”

Librarians and educators interested in bringing NewsGuard to their library or school can visit newsguardtech.com or contact Sarah Brandt at sarah.brandt@newsguardtech.com.

About NewsGuard Technologies

Launched in March 2018 by media entrepreneur Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard provides credibility ratings and detailed “Nutrition Labels” for thousands of news and information websites. NewsGuard rates all the news and information websites that account for 95% of online engagement across the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Italy.

NewsGuard rates each site based on nine apolitical criteria of journalistic practice, including whether a site repeatedly publishes false content, whether it regularly corrects or clarifies errors, and whether it avoids deceptive headlines. It awards weighted points for each criterion and sums them up; a score of less than 60 earns a “Red” rating, while 60 and above earns a “Green” rating, which indicates it is generally reliable.

NewsGuard’s ratings and Nutrition Labels can be licensed by internet service providers, browsers, news aggregators, and social media and search platforms in order to make NewsGuard’s information about news websites available to their users. These ratings are made available to consumers through its browser extension, which is available on Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox browsers, and on mobile devices through the Edge mobile browser for iOS and Android devices. Hundreds of libraries globally use NewsGuard’s free media literacy browser extension on their public-access computers to give their patrons more context for the news they encounter online. For more information, including to download the browser extension and review the ratings process, visit newsguardtech.com.

 

Contacts

Kansas City Public Library:

Talia Evans, Media Relations Specialist, TaliaEvans@kclibrary.org, 816-701-3669

 

NewsGuard:

Steven Brill, Co-CEO, steven.brill@newsguardtech.com, 212-332-6301

Gordon Crovitz, Co-CEO, gordon.crovitz@newsguardtech.com, 212-332-6407

Sarah Brandt, Vice President of News Literacy Program, sarah.brandt@newsguardtech.com