Newsguard, a for-profit scheme that labels information Democrats dislike as untrustworthy, has been in the news much for its well-established liberal bias.
It was described just recently by Real Clear Wire as the organization that the feds pay to “judge truth.”
The company, founded by ex-Wall Street Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz, has lashed out at those who questioned the government-mandated COVID shots, those who raise legitimate questions about the 2020 election, and more. Such questions were described as “disinformation,” “misinformation” and even “malinformation.”
We now know, of course, that those shots caused great damage to many victims, up to and including heart failure, and that 2020 election? Skewed to the left by the partisan $420 million that Mark Zuckerberg gave, through foundations, to recruit Democrat voters and the interference from the FBI which falsely claimed the Biden clan scandals documented in a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned were “Russian disinformation,” when agents knew at the time they was real.
A subsequent poll showed had that been routinely reported, Biden would have been the 2020 election loser.
Now the chiefs of a long list of media organizations, largely those not trending like legacy media to the extreme left, have written House Speaker Mike Johnson asking him to protect a federal law that actually prohibits the government from working with ad agencies adopting Newsguard’s ideologies.
The letter to Johnson was signed by the leaders of the top independent news organization on the web, including Christopher Ruddy of Newsmax, Christopher Dolan of the Washington Times, David P. Santrella of Salem Media Group, Christopher P. Reen of Clarity Media Group, operating as the Washington Examiner, Caleb Robinson of the Daily Wire, Charles Herring of One America News, Howard Diamond of Real Americas Voice, Jasper Fakkert of the Epoch Times, Floyd Brown of the Western Journal, Joseph Farah of WND and Gordon Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network.
They ask Johnson’s help to protecting Section 1532 of the current National Defense Authorization Act.
That requires ad agencies working with the Department of Defense to certify “that they do not utilize media blacklists produced by groups like Newsguard and GDI [Global Disinformation Index].”
“These groups partner with advertising agencies to deny ad revenue to sites disfavored by Democrats,” the letter explained. “From the revelations in the Twitter files to the Weaponization Committee’s recent findings on the Election Integrity Project, Republicans have all the information they need to realize the very real threat the ‘Censorship Industrial Complex’ poses to free speech and independent media.”
In fact, a federal judge recently described the government’s censorship schemes as Orwellian, like that fictional “Ministry of Truth,” and the fight now is pending before the Supreme Court. What apparently has been going on is that federal agencies, unable to censor directly because of constitutional limits, have been taking their dislikes to outside foundations, which then lobby social media to censor comments as the government demands.
The letter explains, “Section 1532 of the House passed National Defense Authorization Act requires that any advertising agency which does business with the Department of Defense to certify that they do not utilize media blacklists produced by groups like NewsGuard and GDI. This is not only important to reining in the Censorship Industrial Complex, but it is also good policy. Last year, the United States Army missed its recruiting goal by nearly 25%. The Army also happens to use an advertising firm that partners with NewsGuard. In the first three quarters of this year, the Army spent over $2.5 million on digital ads on left-leaning sites like The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed, but almost no money on right-leaning media.”
The media chiefs continued, “It probably comes with no surprise that Democrats in the Senate negotiating the conference report for the National Defense Authorization Act are opposed to Section 1532. Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Roger Wicker are fighting valiantly for this provision. To that end, we hope that you will make it clear to Senator Schumer and Leader Jefferies that inclusion of this provision is essential to House consideration of the final conference report. Independent media are clamoring for action against the Censorship Industrial Complex and House Republicans have the opportunity to do just that. We hope you will fight to ensure Section 1532 is included in the final version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.”
The Real Clear report noted the New York Times, “which repeatedly carried false and partisan information from anonymous sources during the Russiagate hoax, gets a 100% [Newsguard] rating.” But Real Clear Investigations, “which took heat in 2019 for unmasking the ‘whistleblower’ of the first Trump impeachment (while many other outlets including the Times still have not), has an 80% rating.”
That report explained, “NewsGuard’s BrandGuard tool provides an ‘exclusion list’ [that] deters advertisers from buying space on sites NewsGuard deems problematic. But that warning service creates inherent conflicts of interest with NewsGuard’s financial model: The buyers of the service can be problematic entities too, with an interest in protecting and buffing their image.”
It added, “NewsGuard has faced mounting criticism that rather than serving as a neutral public service against online propaganda, it instead acts as an opaque proxy for its government and corporate clients to stifle views that simply run counter to their own interests.”
And Newsguard now faces a lawsuit from Consortium News for First Amendment violations and defamation.
Bruce Afran, an attorney for Consortium News, explained, “What’s really happening here is that NewsGuard is trying to target those who take a different view from the government line.”
This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
This post originally appeared on WND News Center.