Fact Check: Media Blacklisters NewsGuard Promotes Fake News

[TomSea]

This is more of a headsup, this outfit which hasn't been around long, a few years or less, is judging websites, news content.

Fact Check: Media Blacklisters NewsGuard Promotes Fake News
John Nolte

NewsGuard is yet another Rorschach test that says everything about the provincial, close-minded, and deceptive blacklisters who created it and nothing about its intended targets.

Let’s start with NewsGuard’s decision to place the Drudge Report on its blacklist. How is it possible to blacklist Drudge as unreliable when  Drudge mostly aggregates news from other sites, and when Drudge does break news, it is never fake?

Blacklisting an aggregation site is not only ludicrous; it is revealing about NewsGuard’s own lack of credibility, transparency, and biases.

Read more at: https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/01/24/fact-check-media-blacklisters-newsguard-promotes-fake-news-violates-standards/

Okay, we get it, it's Breitbart saying this but if one looks further, health oriented websites have come out against it.

BEWARE: New Plan to Censor Health Websites
Written by Dr. Joseph Mercola

(video at link):

    December 04, 2018

 Story at-a-glance

    NewsGuard will rate online news brands based on nine criteria of credibility and transparency, ostensibly to help readers judge what i
is true in order to avoid fake news. It is currently focusing on U.S.-based media brands, but plans to expand online site reviews globally

    NewsGuard received much of its startup funds from Publicis Groupe, a global communications group whose history of clients includes the drug and tobacco industries

    NewsGuard, clearly influenced by Wall Street and indebted to big industries through its funding, is being positioned to eliminate competition, which will allow Big Industry to reign as the leading shaper of public opinion and government health policies

Read more at: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/12/04/newsguard.aspx

So, that I find this other article unrelated to politics says something to me. It's not just whom this "Newsguard" has put on its blacklist (including Drudge which as the Breitbart story makes clear, largely aggregates news sources, CBS and so on).  So, one should watch out for this Newsguard.

[jmyrlefuller]

Just be aware of, and consider, the source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola

In 2005, 2006, and 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Mercola and his company that they were making illegal claims of their products' ability to detect, prevent, and treat disease. The medical watchdog site Quackwatch has criticized Mercola for making "unsubstantiated claims [that] clash with those of leading medical and public health organizations and many unsubstantiated recommendations for dietary supplements."

[jmyrlefuller]

Though Mercola is not alone. Lifesite has raised a stink about them, which appears to be because they refused to respond to NewsGuard's e-mail request.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/why-lifesite-did-not-respond-to-newsguard-questions

[Smokin Joe]

Though Mercola is not alone. Lifesite has raised a stink about them, which appears to be because they refused to respond to NewsGuard's e-mail request.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/why-lifesite-did-not-respond-to-newsguard-questions

Anything which is not from "acceptable" sources, giving "conventional wisdom", will likely be a target.
There may be considerable profit motive for certain schools of thought to be declared orthodox while others are denied the seal of approval.

Next question. What will they say about news organizations who claim that the whole AGW hoax is just that?

I am ever suspicious of any outfit that claims to be THE arbiter of 'truth'.