Loading ...House Probes NewsGuard’s ‘Fact-checking’ Operations, Citing Federal Funding
Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, last week launched an investigation into the fact-checking firm to examine the impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech. In a letter to NewsGuard co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, Comer highlighted federal funding NewsGuard received “and possible actions being taken to suppress accurate information.”
NewsGuard, a “fact-checking” firm that provides “journalist-produced ratings and ‘Nutrition Labels’ for thousands of news and information websites” to advertisers hoping to steer clear of sites that publish “misinformation,” is under congressional scrutiny for its practices.
The probe will examine “the impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns,” the committee said. The letter also questions the potential political bias of NewsGuard’s editorial team.