Showing posts with label Steven Brill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steven Brill. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Opinion | Trump’s Nominees Falsely Say I’m Censoring Conservatives — So They Want to Censor Me; Politico, January 5, 2025

 STEVEN BRILL , Politico; Opinion | Trump’s Nominees Falsely Say I’m Censoring Conservatives — So They Want to Censor Me

"Last week, The Washington Post published an article detailing how NewsGuard, whose journalists rate the reliability of news sources, has become the target of incoming Trump administration regulators and far-right Republicans in Congress. They are accusing me and my NewsGuard colleagues of being part of some left-wing conspiracy — or “cartel” in the words of the incoming chairs of both the FCC and the FTC. Our cartel is supposedly aimed at censoring conservative websites and their associated social media and video platforms.

What we actually do is provide consumers and businesses with our journalists’ assessments of the professional standards of thousands of news websites, assigning them reliability scores based on apolitical, journalistic factors — like accuracy, transparent correction policies and honest headlines. Advertisers, for example, can use these reliability scores to make sure their computerized placements of online ads avoid running alongside Russian disinformation, health care hoaxes or other content that could embarrass their brands. Consumers who subscribe to our browser extension can also see those ratings when they pull up an article or scroll through a Facebook or X feed.

If you click the link to the Post article, you’ll see that the reporters compiled a chart of our 0-100 point ratings for a sample of 20 news sites. It plainly demonstrates that we give high and low ratings to liberal and conservative sites alike, because the nine criteria we use to tally the point score have nothing to do with politics. After all, is there a liberal or conservative way to have a transparent policy for admitting and correcting errors or having headlines that accurately reflect what’s delivered in the story?"

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

This company rates news sites’ credibility. The right wants it stopped.; The Washington Post, December 24, 2024

, The Washington Post; This company rates news sites’ credibility. The right wants it stopped.

"At a time when social media, podcasts and partisan outlets are displacing the mainstream media as news sources, the battle over NewsGuard’s future is symptomatic of a broader societal struggle over who gets to arbitrate the truth."

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Fake news, social media, and "The Death of Truth"; CBS News, September 8, 2024

Ted Koppel, CBS News; Fake news, social media, and "The Death of Truth"

"Brill said, "We're at a point where nobody believes anything. Truth as a concept is really in trouble.  It's suspect."

The cumulative impact of the lies and distortions just keeps growing, such that Brill titled his new book "The Death of Truth." "There are facts," he said, "and it used to be in this world that people could at least agree on the same set of facts and then they could debate what to do about those facts.

But we're losing our grip on any sort of shared reality. Brill's company, NewsGuard, is attempting to put the brakes on. Its 40 or so staffers around the world identify and rate the credibility of online news and information sources."

Monday, June 17, 2024

Video Clip: The Death of Truth; C-Span, June 9, 2024

 C-Span; Video Clip: The Death of Truth

"Steven Brill, a journalist and NewsGuard Co-CEO, talked about his new book on online misinformation and social media, and their impact on U.S. politics and democracy."