The House Oversight Committee is probing whether a firm that purports to rate which news outlets are trustworthy is using federal funds to try to put conservative news outlets out of business.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY) said the committee he chairs has opened an investigation into NewsGuard, a for-profit business with multiple ties to the federal government that makes lists of which news outlets it deems trustworthy, then sells those lists to advertisers.
NewsGuard has received nearly a million dollars from the federal government, largely from the Department of Defense. The State Department also co-sponsored a “COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation” tech challenge that gave a prize to NewsGuard.
Advertisers often use the lists from NewsGuard to avoid doing business with companies that supposedly peddle in “misinformation,” under the implied threat that liberals will boycott…
