Trump’s Nominees Falsely Say I’m Censoring Conservatives—So They Want to Censor Me
The Washington Post recently 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 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (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. If we fail to meet standards of accountability and fairness, our business will—and should—fail. But in this country, the one audience journalists should never have to defend themselves to is a group of government regulators.
[Steven Brill is the co-CEO of NewsGuard and author of The Death of Truth.]
Trump’s Nominees Falsely Say I’m Censoring Conservatives — So They Want to Censor Me