Updates to Ratings

NewsGuard’s team reviews each website’s rating regularly to ensure accuracy.

Once a NewsGuard rating is published, our team regularly reviews it to account for any changes in the site’s credibility or transparency practices that might affect our nine journalistic criteria or the site’s overall rating.

If a site’s rating changes due to change in its adherence to one of NewsGuard’s nine criteria, or if its Nutrition Label is updated to add new information, the changes are noted in an editor’s note at the bottom of the page. In some cases, a site’s rating is checked by NewsGuard’s team and neither its rating nor its Nutrition Label needs to be changed.

In cases where something notable changes, we may review a website’s rating immediately rather than waiting for its regularly scheduled update.

For example, we update sites immediately if:

  • The site’s ownership or leadership changes.
  • The site wins a major award for its journalism.
  • The site publishes a high-profile piece of content.
  • The site makes a high-profile error or is involved in a controversy.
  • A previously reliable site appears in one of our alerts monitoring common misinformation narratives.
  • A site launches a new domain with the same content.
  • The site changes its practices to better adhere to the nine criteria—for example, disclosing its ownership or instituting a corrections policy.
  • We become aware of an error or inaccuracy in our reporting, such as a through a report from a user or publisher.

NewsGuard readers or publishers who believe NewsGuard’s rating for a website contains factual errors can contact our team.

Publishers who wish to improve their NewsGuard rating can do so by reviewing our nine journalistic criteria and reviewing NewsGuard’s rating for their website, which explains in detail why they received that rating. Once any changes are complete, publishers can contact our team to let us know that we should conduct a new review of the site.

Nearly 1/4 of the sites we have rated have changed something about their journalistic practices in order to achieve a higher score.

Learn more about our rating process and criteria.