Could a news site rating system provide newbie readers with some guidance on veracity and honesty? In theory, yes. In practice — no, and the power inherent in it is ripe for corruption. And either way, the idea is predicated on people not being smart enough to tell the difference on their own, a profoundly elitist and nonsensical basis for anything other than outright censorship.
Jonathan Turley has tangled the past few days with NewsGuard, a supposedly fairer version of the thoroughly politicized Global Disinformation Index. After receiving notice recently that NewsGuard intended on giving Turley one of its “nutrition labels,” Turley wrote that “the most chilling words today [are] ‘I’m from NewsGuard and I am here to rate you.” He questioned the motives of its founders, and also the entire idea of rating sites based on subjective measures:
Conservatives have long accused the…
