Reporters with various forms of "fake news" from an 1894 illustration by Frederick Burr Opper. (Photo: College of Arts and Humanities fresnostate.edu)
NewsGuard Strikes Again, Threatening Free Speech
Biden admin funded ‘censorship’ targeting conservative media sites
By Katy Grimes, July 30, 2024 12:30 pm
NewsGuard strikes again.
The Globe recently reported that we, along with other online news outlets which specialize in accurate, honest news reporting, have been the target of political censorship by the U.S. Defense Department-backed, Microsoft-backed, Big Pharma-backed “NewsGuard.”
The attacks on the Globe started in 2021 when we received an email from John Gregory, health editor at NewsGuard. We exchanged many emails with Gregory in 2021 and 2022 about NewsGuard’s rating of CaliforniaGlobe.com, where Gregory accused the Globe of publishing misinformation and disinformation about Covid protocols.
We also recently reported that Dennis Prager’s “Prager U” had just launched a campaign to expose NewsGuard with a petition, and an enlightening Prager U video explaining how this is being done.
Now another NewsGuard victim is fighting back. Jonathan Turley, a Constitutional Law Professor at George Washington University Law School, dared to criticize NewsGuard, which he describes as “a rating operation being used to warn users, advertisers, educators and funders away from media outlets based on how it views the outlets’ ‘credibility and transparency.’”
“Roughly a week later, NewsGuard came knocking at my door,” Turley said. “My blog, Res Ipsa (jonathanturley.org), is now being reviewed and the questions sent by NewsGuard were alarming, but not surprising.”
Turley said he’s not sure why he’s receiving the sudden interest from NewsGuard as he has previously criticized NewsGuard “as one of the most sophisticated operations being used to ‘white list’ and ‘black list’ sites.”
In our case, NewsGuard’s Gregory kept his inquisition up demanding to know how and why we reported the way we did on Covid, the efficacy of mask mandates, the shots, reactions and injuries from the shots. He even claimed that the CDC’s VAERS reporting system (vaccine accident reporting system) was unreliable, demanding to know why we used it as a source.
He questioned how and why we chose the articles to write. He challenged our sources. He said we reported falsely about Covid. He demanded corrections and retractions – or else he would see to it our Google rankings suffered.
It became evident that no matter how much time we invested in sincere answers to his many questions, our Google ratings would suffer – i.e. there was no answer that would satisfy Gregory as his job was to figuratively “crush” the California Globe’s online presence.
As Turley said, “For any site criticizing the media or the Biden administration, the most chilling words today are ‘I’m from NewsGuard and I am here to rate you.’”
Turley continues:
My new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” details how such sites fit into a massive censorship system that one federal court called “Orwellian.”
Conservatives have long accused the company [NewsGuard] of targeting conservative and libertarian sites and carrying out the agenda of its co-founder Steven Brill. Conversely, many media outlets have heralded his efforts to identify disinformation sites for advertisers and agencies.
Brill and his co-founder, L. Gordon Crovitz, want their company to be the media version of the Standard & Poor’s rating for financial institutions. However, unlike the S&P, which looks at financial reports, NewsGuard rates highly subjective judgments like “credibility” based on whether they publish “clearly and significantly false or egregiously misleading” information. They even offer a “Nutrition Label” for consumers of information.
In our fight with NewsGuard, it felt as if we were buried under a mountain of big tech censorship, even though the Globe’s reporting on Covid, our skepticism and questions about lockdowns, masking, social distancing and mandatory shots, was proven valid and correct. The science has conclusively proven that we were right to be skeptical about mask effectiveness, lockdown harms and vaccine overpromising.
But NewsGuard didn’t want us to prove that we were reading the science, talking to scientists and doctors, and were on to something – they wanted us to grovel, to apologize, to beg forgiveness and to make “corrections” or retractions to our articles.
Turley experienced similar irrational demands as the Globe:
NewsGuard also claimed that it could not find a single correction on my site. In fact, there is a location for readers marked “corrections” to register objections and corrections to postings on the site. I also occasionally post corrections, changes and clarifications.
NewsGuard also made bizarre inquiries, including about why I called my blog “Res Ipsa Liquitur [sic] – the thing itself speaks. Could you explain the reason to this non-lawyer?” Res ipsa loquitur is defined in the header as “The thing itself speaks,” which I think speaks for itself.
But one concern was particularly illuminating: “I cannot find any information on the site that would signal to readers that the site’s content reflects a conservative or libertarian perspective, as is evident in your articles. Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”
“Point of view.” Is Axios or Politico required by NewsGuard to disclose on their sites “perspective to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view,” because their websites’ content reflects a liberal or leftist perspective, as is evident in their articles, to use NewsGuard’s lingo.
As I have repeatedly lamented, we were punished for journalistic skepticism, which flies in the face of practicing journalism. We weren’t pushing a narrative, we were just asking important questions and talking to experts for answers.
Recently, NewsGuard’s John Gregory emailed us again from his ivory tower in the Ministry of Truth, but had switched up subjects – with no apology for the two+ years of harassment and apparent big tech censoring.
Most recently, he questioned our reporting on California Governor Gavin Newsom, abortion laws, climate change, crime, trans kids, race/racism and DEI, and… sudden deaths of athletes.
Turley reports:
My blog has thousands of postings that cut across the ideological spectrum. What I have not done is suspend my legal judgment when cases touch on the interests of conservatives or Donald Trump. While I have criticized Trump in the past, I have also objected to some of the efforts to impeach or convict him on dubious legal theories.
Yet, NewsGuard appears to believe that I should label myself as conservative or libertarian as a warning or notice to any innocent strays who may wander on to my blog. It does not appear that NewsGuard makes the same objection to HuffPost or the New Republic, which run overwhelmingly liberal posts. Yet, alleged conservative or libertarian sites are expected to post a warning as if they were porn sites.
It does not matter. Apparently from where NewsGuard reviewers sit, I am a de facto conservative or libertarian who needs to wear a digital bell to warn others.
Our job as journalists is to hold government accountable and suss out the truth. NewsGuard is funded by the government, Big Pharma, and Big Tech to prevent that.
Dennis Prager says, “If truth is allowed to prevail, the Left will fail.”
Turley’s “book calls for a number of reforms, including barring federal funds for groups engaged in censoring, rating or blacklisting sites. NewsGuard shows that such legislation cannot come soon enough,” Turley says.
Media plays a critical role in democratic societies, as a watchdog, ensuring government transparency, enabling informed decision-making, promoting free expression, exposing corruption and holding politicians accountable – and the Left will crush every attempt to do so, if allowed to.
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September 8, 2018
Welcome to the big league. It is a badge of honor for the California Globe to be considered a “threat” by the “rating agency” for the liberal media. Over the last few years, we have watched the tradition mainstream media lose market share. This trend is going to continue to where the advertisers are going to have to jump ship just like they did in the print world. Keep sharing the truth and standing up for what is right. You might also want to look at your business plan for immediate opportunities for growth.
The California Globe and the stalwart Editor in Chief, Katy Grimes have been a beacon of reason and getting to the truth of a matter!
When organizations(censorship bullies) such as NewsGuard or Media Matters have you in their sights, you know big brother is watching! Why?
Because you are doing your job with journalistic integrity. This publication backs its reporting with the facts.
Keep it up California Globe. Stay the course. The bullies will be slayed by the sword of truth. Censorship has no room in the public square of discourse!
I stand for our first amendment right!
Agreed! CG and Katy & crew are right over the target and taking flak…
Keep up the great work and pressure on the forces of darkness that are trying to crush the California and National economies!!!
Yes, keep it up and don’t compromise your integrity! You are the best!
My suggestion to CA Globe and Katy: ignore requests from such entities as “Newsguard” and the like. You can be sure nothing you say will placate them, so why bother to give them anything at all? You are not beholden to them to answer any questions or inquiries, tell them to drop dead. The only useful function of such would be to find out their “blacklist” and use it as a tool to know that any site on that list would be a good source of honest information.
What qualifies John Gregory to be “Health Editor” at NewsGuard? Based on his profile on LinkedIn, nothing? He graduated in 2011 with a BA degree in Radio Broadcasting from Columbia College Chicago which is a private art college in Chicago that has been in the news lately because of declining enrollments, faculty layoffs and budget deficits. Before becoming Health Editor at NewsGuard, he worked 1 year at FM News 101.1 as an Editor/Producer, he worked 4 years at Illinois Radio Network as a Sports Anchor/Reporter, and he worked as a Reporter for TriMed Media for 2 years. His profile does not mention what his preferred pronouns are or what his sexual orientation is, but considering his radical far left politics, we can probably assume what those are? The photo accompanying his profile shows him to be bespeckled larger man with a shaved head and a beard. He’s somewhat reminiscent of a younger Rob Reiner or a younger Michael Moore–and he’s probably just a obnoxious? (https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngregoryx/)
It appears that back in 2020, John Gregory went after a doctor named David Friedman for daring to write an article on the importance of being outdoors during the pandemic that he put on his website (DoctorDavidFriedman.com). Dr. Friedman did not promote a supplement nor did he delve into any controversial topics like social distancing, facemasks, or vaccines. He simply shared his frustration with the “Stay at Home” narrative which was scaring people into barricading themselves inside their homes. His article discussed how being without sunshine and fresh air makes one more vulnerable to getting a viral infection. John Gregory sent Dr. Friedman an email informing him that NewsGuard was red flagging his website as “untrustworthy.” Dr. Friedman couldn’t understand why NewsGuard was going after him for recommending sunshine and he discovered that many other doctors were also being targeted for sharing holistic approaches to living healthier and staying safer during the pandemic.
Dr. Friedman did some digging and followed the money to learn exactly who was financing NewsGuard’s attack. He found that NewsGuard was owned by Steven Brill, a far-left Yale trained lawyer who had founded CourtTV (now TruTV) along with co-owner Louis Gordon Crovitz, who is also a lawyer and former publisher of The Wall Street Journal who also served as executive vice-president of Dow Jones and launched the company’s Consumer Media Group. Both Steven Brill and Louis Gordon Crovitz are Jewish.
Dr. Friedman found that NewsGuard was being financed by vested interest groups with deep connections to Big Pharma, government and Silicon Valley. NewsGuard received millions of dollars from Publicis Groupe, a giant global communications organization that made a name for itself by promoting cigarette smoking, which had connections to pharmaceutical companies that were developing COVID-19 vaccines including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen, Merck & Co. Abbot, Roche, Gilead, Biogen, and Sanofi. Dr. Friedman discovered that Nicholas Penniman, founder and executive director of the Huffington Post, was also one of NewsGuard’s top financial supporters.
Dr. Friedman noted that his website is not monetized so NewsGuard’s severely flawed “fake and untrustworthy news” warning label didn’t harm him or his livelihood, but he warned that there are many businesses that do rely on subscribers, sponsors, or product sales to survive and a NewsGuard attack could cause devastating harm.
(https://doctordavidfriedman.com/blog/who-fact-checks-the-fact-checkers-1)
Great research TJ!
The truth is out there!
These groups have been fabricated to be the arbiters of truth!
How damaging it really is to those wanting to gain knowledge!
Thanks for posting TJ!
WOW! TJ needs to be on CG staff! Great digging on his part to put faces and people behind these manipulative cronies of the left.
The irony of having 2 people of Jewish descendants using the Nazi Goebel’s play book.
Go figure.
An operation such as NewsGuard is like an extortion racket, except instead of “protection” payments from the entities they target, they want submission and a bent-over compliance in hopes of breaking down the target to be as bottom-feeding as they are. They pretend an authority they don’t have to make demands on news outlets which is obviously none of their business in a free country and love their whip-cracking domination. Really sick stuff. Unfortunately the set-up and the destructive leftist funders and dirty bag of tricks and no rules in place to discourage it ALLOWS them to intimidate their targets, cause uncertainty and confusion and anxiety and reduce the traffic and status and income of their targets with the goal of wiping them off the media map. It’s disgusting and unacceptable because they are doing this to entities who are asking proper questions in order to get truthful and accurate information out to readers. And yes, as John Nobles indicated, the list of targets would of course lead us to the most truthful and honorable of news entities; Newsguard is (unintentionally) showing us that.
Reform is overdue and more than necessary. Hope now that Jonathan Turley’s recent experience; his comments and book on a soapbox can provide even more leverage to make that happen ASAP.
While John Gregory may be an actual employee working at NewsGuard, there is probably no way that he has the time to individually research and harass so many media outlets and individuals over their media content? My hunch is that this is a deep state operation that uses AI to scour the internet for content and words that go against the approved deep state globalist narrative. If matches are found, then AI adds the offenders to the untrustworthy list and then it also sends out threatening emails and correspondence under the name of John Gregory. Plausible?
More than plausible, TJ —- it sounds like you nailed it.
Really good stuff on Gregory above, by the way.
California Globe is my second website to read in the morning. First is morning devotional.
CG is hugely valuable since there is no reporting of substance on California to be found elsewhere.
My $0.02: Don’t play defense with Newsguard. Investigate their individual backgrounds. See if they are colluding with politicians, then expose any connections loudly and publicly. Build a public de facto RICO case against them. Make them regret they ever heard of CG.