Newsguard was founded in 2018 “by media entrepreneur and award-winning journalist Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz,” to provide tools “to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies.”
How does it work? “NewsGuard employs a team of journalists and experienced editors to produce reliability ratings and scores for news and information websites based on nine journalistic criteria. The criteria assess basic practices of credibility and transparency. Based on a site’s performance on these nine apolitical criteria, which are each weighted differently with the points for all adding up to 100, it is assigned a 0-100 score, also expressed as 0% to 100%, and a rating level indicating the degree to which it adheres to the weighted criteria. The accompanying Nutrition Label, accessible by clicking through from the listed score, then explains how NewsGuard arrived at its assessment.”
The plugin for browsers, is freely available for public libraries to utilise on their public PCs.
Already utilised by one Victorian public library, if you are interested in finding out more:
- NewsGuard for Public Libraries presentation
- Media Literacy Program for Public Libraries webpage
- Article in Library Journal – Toledo Lucas Country Library installs NewsGuard
Any libraries that become partners (eg. install Newsguard on their computers), also receive free access to Newsguards two client-only misinformation risks briefings (weekly) and free media literacy training webinars for library staff.
If you are interested in knowing more, please contact Virginia Padovese – [email protected].
Michelle McLean
PLV
Library trivia: Victoria’s most northerly branch is Merbein – part of Mildura Rural City Council Libraries.