A NewsGuard ‘Fact Checker’ Sent Me Some Questions. Here Was My Answer.

New in PJ Media:

Who watches the watchmen?

In their ongoing efforts to discredit, marginalize, and silence all those who dissent from their agenda, leftists are still trying to fool the public by establishing ostensibly neutral “fact-checking” organizations that purport to identify “fake news,” but which actually apply that label only to those who don’t parrot their nonsense. One of the most notorious examples of this is Snopes, which claims to be an objective arbiter of the accuracy of news reports, but which is actually a deeply biased and misleading site: see, for example, here and here.

Along with Snopes, one of the foremost exponents of this scam is NewsGuard, an initiative of the hard-left self-appointed news arbiter Steven Brill that received $749,387 from the Department of Defense in 2021. What conceivable benefit could a leftist propaganda outfit masquerading as a neutral fact-checking have to the Department of Defense? Well, if you’re a corrupt and politicized government agency that is more concerned about defending the Biden-Harris regime from its political opponents than with defending the United States of America from its enemies, you might find NewsGuard to be quite handy.

The Biden-Harris regime, of course, loves this sort of thing. Remember, it even set up an abortive “Disinformation Governance Board” supposedly to help Americans (whom regime wonks clearly regard as stupid and undiscerning) distinguish the truth (that is, the left’s line) from lies (that is, whatever Trump was saying). The whole thing went up in flames, however, when some of the nation’s top intelligence professionals labeled Hunter Biden’s laptop “disinformation,” yet it turned out to be real.

Yet the left still remains committed to its hollow and self-serving “fact-checking” game. Recently, NewsGuard senior apparatchik Eva Maitland sent me a series of “when did you stop beating your wife?”-type questions, assuming that NewsGuard has some right to judge the accuracy of news sites, and holding out the false hope that NewsGuard would give my website, Jihad Watch, a clean bill of health. Here was what I sent her in response:

Dear Ms. Maitland

Please first answer these questions and provide this information.

1. What establishes NewsGuard as a reliable, objective, and trustworthy authority?
2. Given the ideological differences between NewsGuard and Jihad Watch, would it ever be possible for Jihad Watch to achieve a positive grade from you, no matter how scrupulously we complied with your demands?
3. NewsGuard received $749,387 from the Department of Defense in 2021. Doesn’t that undermine your claim to be an objective resource?
4. NewsGuard in Nov. 2023 denied established facts about the hospital bombing in Gaza, and covered for jihadis. Have you retracted this false information and apologized? Why not? Details here, in case you’re unaware of this incident.
5. Do you share the Biden administration’s desire to demonize, marginalize and silence dissident voices?
6. Does it not trouble you that evil totalitarian regimes throughout history have behaved in a similar way?

There is more. Read the rest here.