Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have taken leftist, biased media ratings firm NewsGuard to task for its ties to the Biden-Harris administration.
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter to NewsGuard Co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz on Oct. 25, according to a committee press release. Comer asked the online ratings firm for all documentation related to past or present potential partnerships with and grants from the federal government. “The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is continuing to investigate the impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns,” Comer wrote.
MRC has repeatedly exposed NewsGuard’s ratings system in multiple studies for being overwhelmingly skewed against right-leaning media. MRC’s most recent study, released December 2023, revealed that NewsGuard gave “left” and “lean left” outlets an average “credibility” rating of 91/100, whereas “right” and “lean right” outlets got slammed with an abysmal 65/100 score, a 26-point disparity. NewsGuard applies nutrition labels to media outlets and directly targets the flow of ad revenue to a media outlet based on NewsGuard’s opinion of that outlet’s reliability, objectivity and other factors.
Comer continued: “Our investigation has particularly focused on abuse of government authority to censor American citizens under the guise of protecting them from so-called misinformation.”
NewsGuard previously provided information to the committee on its contracts with the Department of Defense (DOD), the press release on Comer’s letter noted, but the collusion doesn’t stop there. Comer’s letter explained that NewsGuard admitted in a briefing to working with the leftist anti-free speech interagency Global Engagement Center (GEC) and the Cyber National Mission Force within the U.S. Cyber Command. GEC funded NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, which deliberately blacklist conservative sites from ad revenue. NewsGuard even coordinated with a foreign government entity, the Joint Research Centre of the European Union.
The letter included a list of requests for documents related to potential NewsGuard collusion with the DOD, the State Department — including the infamous censorship-funding GEC — and any other federal entity.
Comer’s letter added, “These wide-ranging connections with various government agencies are taking place as the government is rapidly expanding into the censorship sphere.” Between 2016 and 2023, no fewer than 538 grants and 36 government contracts were identified by the Committee to address so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation,” favorite leftist catchphrases to justify censorship. “Additional reporting, collectively known as the Twitter Files, showcase intelligence agencies’ interest in colluding with private companies and make our requests for fulland complete disclosure on all government relationships with NewsGuard all the more pressing,” Comer insisted. The Twitter Files provided evidence that government grant money funded NewsGuard’s activities to crush online speech.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
