• by Ray Schultz , July 9, 2024

NewsGuard, a prominent fact checker founded by renowned journalist Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, is used by a variety of entities ranging from big tech to the government. But PragerU is frontally attacking it, saying it censors the news. 

For one thing, NewsGuard’s staff is “mostly comprised of left-leaning activists and ex-journalists,” says Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, in a video featured in a #EndBigTechCensorship promotion on X. 

“And guess who they don’t like?” Streit continues. “They really don’t like PragerU, The Daily Wire, The Federalist and other news and opinion sources that are not on the left.” 

As to what may have precipitated this blast, PragerU claims that NewsGuard attacked it. “After labeling PragerU as misinformation, encouraging tech platforms to cancel us, damaging our reputation, and costing us hundreds of thousands — if millions — of dollars, NewsGuard refuses to leave us alone,” Streit says.  

NewsGuard responded to a query with this statement: "NewsGuard produces reliability ratings of news outlets using a set of basic, apolitical journalistic criteria and a transparent rating process. Our work is the opposite of censorship--providing readers and clients with more information about the news sources they encounter rather than blocking content in any way." It has also asserted that the PragerU comments were in the context of a fundraising pitch. 

It adds that since “launching in 2018, its global staff of trained journalists and information specialists has collected, updated, and deployed more than 6.9 million data points on more than 35,000 news and information sources, and cataloged and tracked all of the top false narratives spreading online.”