Consortium News is being “reviewed” by NewsGuard, a U.S. government- linked organization that is trying to enforce a narrative on Ukraine while seeking to discredit dissenting views. The organization has accused Consortium News, begun in 1995 by former Associated Press investigative reporter Robert Parry, of publishing “false content” on Ukraine.
It calls “false” essential facts about Ukraine that have been suppressed in mainstream media: 1) that there was a U.S.-backed coup in 2014 and 2) that neo-Nazism is a significant force in Ukraine. Reporting crucial information left out of corporate media is Consortium News‘ essential mission. But NewsGuard considers these facts to be “myths” and is demanding Consortium News “correct” these “errors.”
NewsGuard has a partnership with the Pentagon. (Joe Lauria) Who is NewsGuard?
NewsGuard set itself up in 2018 as a judge of news organizations’ credibility. The front page of NewsGuard’s website shows that it is “partners” with the State Department and the Pentagon, as well as with several major corporations, such as Microsoft. The nature of these “partnerships” is not entirely clear.
NewsGuard is a private corporation that can shield itself from First Amendment obligations. But it has connections to formerly high-ranking U.S. government officials in addition to its “partnerships” with the State Dept. and the Pentagon.
Among those sitting on NewsGuard’s advisory board are Gen. Michael Hayden, the former Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director; Tom Ridge, the first U.S. Homeland Security director and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former secretary general of NATO. NewGuard says its ”advisors provide advice and subject-matter expertise to NewsGuard. They play no role in the determinations of ratings or the Nutrition Label write ups of websites unless otherwise noted and have no role in the governance or management of the organization.”
The co-CEO, with former Wall Street Journal publisher Louis Gordon Crovitz, is Steven Brill, who in the 1990s published Brill’s Content, a magazine that was billed as a watchdog of the press, critiquing the role of the media to hold government to account. NewsGuard is a government- affiliated organization judging media like Consortium News that is totally independent of government or corporations.
NewsGuard has a rating process that results in a news organization receiving either a green or red label. Fox News and other major media, for example, have received green labels.
Getting a red label means that potentially millions of people that have the NewsGuard extension installed and operating on their browsers will see the green or red mark affixed to websites on social media and Google searches. (For individuals that do not already have it installed and operating on Microsoft’s browser, it costs $4.95 a month in the U.S., £4.95 in the U.K., or €4.95 in the EU to run the extension.)
Click for Full Text!