When did your organization launch and why?
NewsGuard launched in 2018 to help people spot misinformation and build media literacy skills by providing them with “Reliability Ratings” and “Nutrition Label” reviews for news sources.
What does your organization do? What are its main goals? Main projects?
NewsGuard deploys humans — trained journalists — to rate the reliability of more than 7,500 news and information websites in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, and Italy. Each site is evaluated using nine basic, apolitical criteria of journalistic practice, resulting in a Green or Red rating indicating whether the site is generally reliable. Each rating is described in a detailed “Nutrition Label” review for the source. These ratings and reviews are available via a browser extension that integrates with your search results and social media feeds, giving users instant access to critical source reliability context at the moment they encounter an article or other piece of content online.
What makes your organization stand out? What would you say is the most unique thing about your organization?
NewsGuard relies on HI (Human Intelligence) not AI (Artificial Intelligence), to conduct its ratings. Using this approach enables NewsGuard to be transparent and accountable in its rating process — the opposite of an opaque algorithm.
What are recent projects or new resources that your organization would like to share with other NAMLE members?
NewsGuard recently announced a partnership with the American Federation of Teachers, through which all 1.7 million members are eligible to access NewsGuard at no cost for them, their students, and their colleagues. To sign up for free access to NewsGuard courtesy of the AFT, visit their website.
What are the connections between the work of your organization and media literacy?
NewsGuard’s ratings and reviews of news websites help people of all ages better understand the reliability of thousands of news sources, while also helping them build skills necessary to perform source evaluations on their own. In addition to offering a browser extension that serves as a media literacy teaching tool, NewsGuard also offers supplementary media literacy exercises and curricula, available for free here.
Why is media literacy important to your organization?
Media literacy is society’s best defense against dangerous disinformation.
The views and opinions expressed in the Organizational Spotlight blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NAMLE or its members. The purpose of the Organizational Spotlight blog is to highlight our Organizational Partners and give them a place to share their reflections, opinions, and ideas.