11/20/2019

NewsGuard Kite Marks Rate the Reliability of News Websites, Without Creating the Risk of Government Licensing of News Publishers

NewsGuard ratings and Nutrition Labels are a practical solution delivering on the Liberal Democrat manifesto countering misinformation and regulate against online harms

(20 November 2019, LONDON) Anna-Sophie Harling, managing director for Europe of NewsGuard, issued this statement in reaction to the publication of the Liberal Democrat manifesto:

“NewsGuard offers an alternative between government regulation of the media and the status quo that has allowed websites peddling information to pose as journalistic enterprises. The Liberal Democrat manifesto has put tackling fake news and promoting media literacy at the heart of its media policy.”

“NewsGuard helps to promote high-quality news by providing easy to understand green and red ratings and Nutrition Labels so that consumers can check the quality of the news they see in their social media feeds, search results and elsewhere online. NewsGuard already uses the kite marking proposed by the Liberal Democrat manifesto to empower consumers, without any involvement of governments or risking government licensing of news publishers.”
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NewsGuard Background:

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 92% of online engagement in the U.K. and similarly in the U.S., Germany, France and Italy.

NewsGuard rates each site based on nine basic, 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, mobile 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 also made available to consumers through its browser extension, which is available on Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox browsers, and on mobile devices through the Microsoft 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.

Contact:

Anna-Sophie Harling
077 33700179
as.harling@newsguardtech.com