03/05/2020

Livonia and Lyon Township Public Libraries Join NewsGuard in News Literacy Partnership

Patrons at the libraries can now see reliability ratings of news sources they encounter while using library computers, making these Detroit-area libraries the first in Michigan to join NewsGuard’s global News Literacy Partnership Program

(Livonia, Michigan and Lyon Township, Michigan—March 5, 2020) As Michiganders think about their choices in next week’s Democratic primary and the November general election, the Livonia and Lyon Township Public Libraries are offering patrons a new tool to spot misinformation and assess the reliability of online news sources.

The libraries are collaborating with NewsGuard, a New York-based startup founded by veteran journalists, to provide its media literacy browser extension on all computers at the libraries. With NewsGuard installed, visitors to the libraries’ combined four locations serving more than 108,000 Detroit-area residents will have access to Nutrition Label reviews of thousands of news and information websites, which show up next to links in search results and on social media feeds. 

“With the abundance of misinformation on the coronavirus alone, NewsGuard can help guide patrons to accountable and trustworthy sites. Since they are also nonpartisan, political information that can be trusted is also a welcome relief,” said Toni LaPorte, Livonia’s Library Director. 

Both libraries will also be partnering with NewsGuard to host workshops this summer that will train library patrons on how to avoid fake news and think critically about where they get their news and information online. Both workshops — Lyon Township’s on June 24 and Livonia’s on July 14 — are free and open to the public and will be led by NewsGuard’s Washington Correspondent Gabby Deutch. More information will be posted soon at Lyon.lib.mi.us and LivoniaPublicLibary.org.

“Using NewsGuard alleviates some of the painstaking time and effort involved to critically analyze everything that I read online. As a librarian, my job is to look for citations, sourcing, credentials, and bias,” said Katie Rothley, Lyon Township’s Marketing and Outreach Librarian. “Having a reliable service instantly clarify what could be a potentially misleading or biased website is beneficial to our community.” 

NewsGuard analysts, who are trained journalists with varied backgrounds, rate websites based on nine binary, 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. 

NewsGuard awards weighted points for each criterion and sums them up; 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. 

By installing the extension on its public-access computers, the library is giving patrons more context for the news they encounter online and helping them build critical news literacy skills. 

“Public libraries have long done the important work of connecting curious Americans to facts and quality information,” said Gabby Deutch, NewsGuard’s Washington Correspondent. “Michigan is already a hub for political misinformation because of the crucial role it plays in the electoral process, and NewsGuard appreciates the opportunity to help libraries inform patrons before they cast their ballot.” 

With support from Microsoft and Oscar, which sponsor NewsGuard’s news literacy initiative, NewsGuard makes its browser extension available free to public libraries. More than 700 libraries globally already use NewsGuard, though Livonia and Lyon Township are the first in Michigan. 

“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, NewsGuard’s Vice President of New Literacy Programs, at sarah.brandt@newsguardtech.com. 

About Livonia Public Library

We are a community with a population of over 90,000, located in the metro Detroit area, with three branches serving our citizens.

About Lyon Township Public Library

Lyon Township Public Library serves a growing community of over 18,000 residents.  With an evolving collection of books, media, and digital resources, LTPL recently added a “Library of Things,” which includes STEAM activity kits and lendable devices.

About NewsGuard

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:

Livonia Public Library

  • Toni LaPorte, Library Director, tlaporte@livoniapubliclibrary.org, +1 734-466-2491

Lyon Township Public Library

NewsGuard

  • Steven Brill, Co-CEO, steven.brill@newsguardtech.com, +1 212-332-6301
  • Gordon Crovitz, Co-CEO, gordon.crovitz@newsguardtech.com, +1 212-332-6407
  • Sarah Brandt, Vice President of News Literacy Programs, sarah.brandt@newsguardtech.com
  • Gabby Deutch, Washington Correspondent, gabby.deutch@newsguardtech.com