In an era of fake news, a whole industry has sprung up to police the internet. These news rating agencies, or as Slate coins them, the "Trust Industry," promise to employ their teams of experts and algorithms to weed out falsehoods disguised as news content. One of the latest is NewsGuard, a browser plugin that assigns ratings for many of the internet's most trafficked sites.
The company, founded by media executives Steve Brill and Gordon Crovitz, assigns green, yellow and red labels to websites indicating trustworthiness. The ratings are determined by a team of about 30 analysts rather than an algorithm.
Joining Cincinnati Edition to discuss NewsGuard's methods and what news consumers should consider about the fact-checking industry are NewsGuard Editorial Director Eric Effron (@EricEffron); and University of Cincinnati McMicken College of Arts and Sciences Head of the Journalism Department and Associate Professor Jeffrey Blevins, Ph.D. (@JeffBlevinsPhD).
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