Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax is parroting the Media Research Center's loud and lame war on website-rating service NewsGuard, repeating the dubious narrative that NewsGuard exists solely to suppress right-wing views. Theodore Bunker huffed in a March 10 article:
NewsGuard, a left-wing media monitoring organization which claims to rate the credibility of news websites, was awarded nearly $750,000 from the Department of Defense in 2021 according to publicly available records.
The revelation comes in the latest "Twitter Files" post by Matt Taibbi.
Bunker offered no proof that NewsGuard is "left-wing"; instead, he copy-and-pasted the MRC's attacks:
The Media Research Center has examined NewsGuard's "ratings" system and found the service continually favors left-wing and liberal news outlets as "trusted" and negatively rates conservative ones as not reliable.
Newsguard negatively rates leading conservative outlets like Washington Times, Newsmax, Breitbart, Federalist, Epoch Times, Red State, Prager U, Daily Wire, and others.
We've documented how the MRC's purported examination of NewsGuard's rating system is actually all about how the shoddiness of right-wing media is being exposed by NewsGuard and how it's demanding that NewsGuard mandate false ratings parity.
Newsmax parroted other right-wing attacks on NewsGuard around that time as well:
- Fla. CFO Warns NewsGuard About Targeting Conservative Media
- Ric Grenell to Newsmax: NewsGuard Demonetizing Govt 'Dissent'
- Dennis Prager to Newsmax: Leftists Have Never Allowed Dissent
- Rep. Neal Dunn: NewsGuard Targeted Conservative Media
- Rep. Dunn to Newsmax: Pentagon Funding NewsGuard 'Appalling'
As the right-wing war on NewsGuard heated up in the fall, Newsmax was happy to take part, such as in an Oct. 20 article by Mark Swanson:
Elon Musk railed against the left-wing media fact-checker NewsGuard on Thursday, calling the ratings company a "scam" and saying it should be "disbanded immediately."
Musk's reaction came in the aftermath of a series of posts on his social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.
One came from Foundation for Freedom Online executive director Mike Benz, who claimed NewsGuard, led by adviser and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, worked with the European Union on a disinformation code that would prompt governments to bankrupt alternative news sites.
Benz highlighted NewsGuard's business model, which he said combines "disinformation compliance services with censorship laws it promotes."
[...]
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy months ago called out NewsGuard — and the Global Disinformation Index — for exerting their influence to silence conservative voices. Ruddy said they present themselves as independent fact-checkers.
Swanson didn't mention that Benz had been exposed a couple weeks earlier as a creator of videos promoting racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories while posting under the name Frame Game, just the the MRC similarly failed to do while hyping Benz's claim.
This turned into a circular promotion with Musk, which Newsmax was only too happy to tout in an Oct. 22 article by Sandy Fitzgerald:
Elon Musk Sunday responded to a Newsmax article concerning his objections to left-wing media fact-checker NewsGuard, agreeing that it is "not cool" for it to push a "political agenda" with its ratings.
"Yeah, it’s not cool. Pushing a political agenda in the name of “guarding” the public," Musk posted on his social media site X, formerly Twitter, in a response to Newsmax's article, published Thursday after he called NewsGuard a "scam" and said it should be "disbanded immediately."
In neither article was any proof offered to back up the claim that NewsGuard is "left-wing."
An Oct. 23 article by Swanson touted another attack on NewsGuard:
The publishers of the foreign policy news website Consortium News filed a lawsuit against the left-wing media fact-checker NewsGuard Technologies, Inc. and the U.S. government on Monday in New York federal court, claiming First Amendment violations and defamation.
The publisher, Consortium for Independent Journalism, accused NewsGuard of defaming Consortium News and the government for colluding with the self-proclaimed media "watchdog" to violate the First Amendment.
The publisher also is accusing an alliance between NewsGuard and the government — specifically the Pentagon's Cyber Command — of coercing news organizations to "alter viewpoints" that differ or dissent from policies of the United States and its allies," via a program called the "misinformation fingerprints" project.
And just as the MRC did, Swanson failed to tell readers that Consortium News is a liberal-leaning site, since doing so undermines the right0wing narrative that NewsGuard is uniquely biased against right-wing website. And, again, Swanson offered no proof to back up his claim that NewsGuard is "left-wing."
The anti-NewsGuard hits continued:
- Federalist: House Targets Pentagon's NewsGuard Censorship of Conservatives
- Left-Wing NewsGuard Has Ties to Big Pharma Fund
Then, presumably in the hope of setting off another round of circular promotion, a Nov. 23 article by Luca Cacciator and Michael Katz hyped another Musk attack on NewsGuard:
Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, issued a new warning Wednesday about the left-wing ratings company NewsGuard.
In a post on the site, X said it was the latest organization to be targeted by NewsGuard, which has systematically targeted conservative media.
"NewsGuard is about to publish a 'report' on misinformation on X. As a for-profit company, they will only share the data that underpins their purported research if you pay," X explained.
X then highlighted NewsGuard's strategy in going after the platform — the same strategy it has employed on dozens of other companies.
NewsGuard "uses these reports to pressure companies to buy their 'fact-checking' services. It's a profit over any principle model," X said.
"X has not seen any of the data in their report. Before publishing, we encourage all media outlets to request the data underpinning their claims."
After the X posting, Elon Musk himself weighed in on the matter, posting to his account, "In other words, 'NewsGuard' is a propaganda shop that will produce any lies you want if you pay them enough money."
Cacciatore and Katz failed to note that Twitter/X is also ostensibly a for-profit company that will only share the data that underpins its purported research in defense of the company. That was demonstrated with the "Twitter files," in which Musk released selective data and documents to hand-picked writers whose job it was to push Musk's preferred narrative about "censorship" at Twitter by pre-Musk management. Of course, they also failed to offer any evidence that NewsGuard is "left-wing."
