The Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative media watchdog, recently published a study claiming that NewsGuard, a media rating organization, is biased against conservative news sources. According to the MRC’s annual review of NewsGuard’s ratings, for the third consecutive year, NewsGuard appeared to favor liberal and far-left media outlets over conservative ones in its rankings.
MRC President Brent Bozell, in a statement, accused NewsGuard of being “just another leftist group trying to censor conservatives,” asserting that their analysis offers proof of this bias.
The MRC’s study, utilizing a media list from AllSides, found that NewsGuard assigned a higher average “credibility” rating to media outlets categorized as “left” and “lean left,” including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and Vox. These outlets received an average rating of 91 out of 100. In contrast, “right” and “lean right” outlets such as Newsmax, Fox News, The New York Post, The Federalist, Breitbart, and The Daily Wire received an average rating of 65, which the MRC described as “outrageously abysmal.”
This rating of 65 was a decrease from the average ratings found in MRC’s previous two studies in January 2023 and December 2021, where NewsGuard gave conservative organizations an average rating of 66.
The MRC criticized NewsGuard’s CEO Steven Brill, who is a known Democrat activist and donor, for attempting to mislead Americans into believing that NewsGuard’s process for evaluating media outlet credibility is non-partisan.
Highlighting NewsGuard’s approach towards legacy media outlets during the 2020 election, particularly regarding the Hunter Biden laptop story reported by the New York Post, the MRC alleged that NewsGuard treated the story as disinformation. Despite outlets like The Washington Post, USA Today, and Politico being proven wrong about the Hunter Biden laptop story, NewsGuard did not alter their perfect 100 ratings.
CEO Brill, before the 2020 election, appeared on CNBC labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as a likely Russian “hoax.” Although NewsGuard claimed neutrality in the matter, its top board adviser, Gen. Michael Hayden, was a signatory to a letter falsely claiming the laptop was Russian disinformation, a stance embraced by Brill.
The MRC accused NewsGuard of using its ratings to deter advertisers from associating with media outlets accused of spreading misinformation, thus impacting their financial viability. It also highlighted NewsGuard’s unchanged ratings for The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Reuters, and Time, even after these outlets erroneously reported on an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.
Responding to the MRC’s study, NewsGuard’s Matt Skibinski criticized the analysis for being based on a small sample size, less than 0.7% of over 9,500 ratings issued by NewsGuard. Skibinski pointed out that NewsGuard’s non-partisan process had resulted in conservative publications like The Daily Caller, The Daily Wire, and FoxNews.com outscoring similar left-leaning publications.
The MRC rebutted, noting that these higher scores do not consistently reflect the rankings of conservative media. The organization also mentioned that conservative critics of NewsGuard, such as Newsmax and The Federalist, have been subject to very low scores.
Lastly, the MRC drew attention to NewsGuard’s relationship with the Biden administration, citing a nearly $750,000 contract awarded by the Pentagon to NewsGuard in 2021 to investigate “misinformation fingerprints.” This relationship led to legislative actions by Republican Representatives Rich McCormick and Doug Lamborn, who proposed an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. This amendment aims to prevent military recruitment funding from being allocated to entities like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI). The amendment was included in the final act thanks to the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson.
