 Maurice Levy |
Publicis Groupe leads a $6M investor group financing NewsGuard, a venture announced today by media entrepreneur Steve Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, to combat “fake news.”
They plan to hire dozens of journalists to review 7,500 of the most-accessed and shared websites, and give each a green (trusted source), yellow (proceed with caution) or red (fake news) reliability rating. Those English language sites account for 98 percent of the articles read and shared in the US.
Sites also will receive “nutrition label” write-ups containing info about who owns/edits the site, what it covers and notable awards/mistakes.
The ratings and nutrition labels will be licensed to social media platforms and online search companies.
A NewsGuard “swat team” will be on alert 24/7 to act on suddenly trending stories from an unrated source or a site just launched to promote a fictitious story.
Brill, founder of Court TV, The American Lawyer and Brill’s Content, said NewsGuard’s use of experienced journalists operating in an accountable fashion “will apply basic common sense to a growing scourge that clearly cannot be solved by algorithms.”
Maurice Levy, Publicis Group chairman, called NewsGuard a concrete and answerable answer to the concerns of clients.
“Advertisers care about the quality and credibility of the brands they support, and we are delighted to be the lead investor in NewsGuard as a key part of the solution to the crisis of fake news,” he said in a statement.
Levy noted that advertisers are concerned about brand safety and don’t want to finance or appear alongside fake news.
He said NewsGuard will publish and license "white lists" of news sites that clients can use to support legitimate publishers while protecting their brand reputations.
Brill and Crovitz expect to launch NewsGuard ahead of the November mid-term elections.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
USA TODAY brings on Jamie Stockwell as VP of news, effective March 30. Stockwell was most recently deputy managing editor of news for the Washington Post... YouTube expands its likeness detection capabilities to a pilot group of government officials, journalists and political candidates... The AP Fund for Journalism adds 50 news organizations to its local news program, bringing the total number of participating newsrooms to 100. 
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
