A new digital scheme is underway to protect Americans from fake news. Microsoft’s NewsGuard, available to Android, iOS and Chrome users, is intended to help people spot unreliable news sites. Microsoft is installing it on its browser, so many people will have to deal with this high-tech sentry, whether they asked for it or not.
Like many well-intentioned projects, NewsGuard — developed by self-appointed media cop Steven Brill — is a bad idea. In taking on the role of news police, NewsGuard pushes the ideal of a well-informed citizenry further out of reach.
Here’s how it works: NewsGuard uses a “green-red” rating system. A green badge appears next to headlines from sources that are deemed to maintain “basic standards of accuracy and accountability.” A red badge means that a site falls short.
Green-rated outlets include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and Time, among others. Drudge Report, Daily Kos, The Daily Mail and Al Jazeera are in the red zone. NewsGuard also allows users to drill down for a more detailed analysis of each outlet’s credibility.
While the fact-checking business is notoriously politicized, the sample above is admirably apolitical. But there are deeper problems. First, it’s not clear why NewsGuard uses certain criteria. For example, it puts The New York Post in a category that Business Insider describes at “Trustworthy, with caveats.” The Post gets demerits for, among other things, not including contact information for all its content providers.
How exactly does preserving the privacy of writers make a newspaper less reliable? In any event, it’s very easy for readers to contact The Post about a story.
A bigger problem is that there is no objective way to determine whether or not an outlet is accurate and accountable when taken as a whole. Every media institution has its mistakes and its triumphs. Green-rated outlets will still have their unreliable moments, and red-rated sites will still break valid scoops.
What NewsGuard provides, then, is a shortcut to dismissing or trusting a given outlet, regardless of the story in question. In this way, it facilitates thoughtlessness, which fake news thrives on.
There are practical issues as well. If you’re the type of news consumer who sifts through headlines to find sensationalism or ideological ammunition, you aren’t about to let some app spoil the fun. Do fast food junkies pore over calorie charts before ordering? No. If they wanted health food they would go somewhere else.
Worst, NewsGuard fails to address the central dynamic of media misinformation: It’s the most reputable media institutions that most effectively spread inaccuracies — precisely because they are considered the gold standard of media responsibility.
Think of what happened last weekend at the March for Life. Major outlets rushed to report on the clash between the Covington Catholic HS students and a Native American activist — and got it wrong. They all told the same false story: A group of disrespectful white conservative kids harassed a peaceful Vietnam veteran.
Protected by their vaunted reputations, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and countless other green-rated outlets spread fake news to millions. And while they corrected the record as more facts came to light, the false story’s themes of racism and privilege continued to resonate.
Other times, prestigious outlets don’t even correct misleading stories. When a 7-year-old black girl named Jazmine Barnes was shot and killed in Houston, for example, The New York Times published multiple stories about racial prejudice based on early reports that the shooter was white.
It turned out he wasn’t. The girl was shot by black gang members. And Times coverage of the case simply dried up. Did the Times publish fake news? Not exactly. It just tried to turn some bad information into a larger indictment of race relations in America. Presumably, a misfire of that sort would pose no threat to the paper’s green status.
Fact is, fake news has existed for decades. It was only when it became a preferred liberal explanation for the election of President Trump that fake news was seen as an existential threat to democracy. Since then, it’s sloppy news, lazy news and biased news from respected outlets that have been the most damaging. The only antidote is for Americans to embrace a healthy skepticism and wait for the facts.
No app or algorithm will do that for us.
Abe Greenwald is senior editor of Commentary.