Reliability ratings for news outlets based on nonpartisan journalistic criteria

NewsGuard deploys a team of expert journalists to rate and review the reliability of news sources across the open web, social media, and content platforms based on a set of apolitical criteria of journalistic practice.

Accessible via web dashboard, API or cloud datastream, our ratings have become the trusted source for understanding media reliability for research institutions, technology platforms, news aggregators, artificial intelligence providers, advertising companies, and news consumers worldwide.

Coverage of 35K+ news sources worldwide

NewsGuard’s ratings cover more than 10,000 websites and a total of 35,000+ publishers worldwide across the web, social media and content platforms,  TV and CTV networks, and podcasting platforms. The ratings cover publishers accounting for 95%+ of online engagement with news.

30+ data points about each rated news source

Each rated publisher receives a rating on each of NewsGuard’s criteria, a total reliability score of 0-100, an overall rating level ranging from “High Credibility” to “Proceed with Caution,” and more than 30 descriptive metadata fields with data about the site’s ownership, content, operations, and flags noting whether the site has published misinformation on key topics.

Continuous updates to ensure accuracy

Ratings are refreshed regularly to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. NewsGuard’s team tracks changes in publishers’ content, ownership, domain-hopping, or other factors that could impact a publisher’s score–and monitors for new publishers gaining engagement or spreading misinformation.

Backed by detailed ‘Nutrition Label’ reports

The evidence supporting each rating is specified in a detailed report produced by NewsGuard’s analysts called a “Nutrition Label,” including specific examples of content causing a publisher to fail any of the rating criteria. Before publishing, NewsGuard’s analysts contact publishers seek comment and give them a chance to rectify any issues.

Proactive flagging of unreliable news sources

NewsGuard’s rapid response team tracks emerging misinformation topics to identify new and emerging publishers and malign actors–providing real-time protection as misinformation sources spin up new domains, shift web addresses, or begin trending with an emerging false narrative. Learn more about some of our ongoing rapid response efforts:

• AI Misinformation Tracking Center
• Elections Misinformation Tracking Center
• Russia-Ukraine Disinformation Tracking Center
• Israel-Hamas War Misinformation Tracking Center

A rigorous and transparent rating process

NewsGuard’s ratings are widely trusted across industries because of our transparent, nopartisan rating process, including:

• Transparent criteria posted publicly: All of our ratings are based on the same set of apolitical journalistic criteria, which are defined in detail on our website. This means any publisher can understand the criteria and how to achieve a high score.
• Apolitical approach: Our criteria focus on journalistic practices–not politics–and as a result, outlets across the political spectrum score highly on our rating scale.
• Nonpartisan journalists: Our analysts come from nonpartisan journalistic backgrounds, and each analyst signs a robust nonpartisanship pledge as a condition of employment.
• Proactively contacting publishers: We contact each publisher as a part of of the rating process, including giving publishers with less than perfect scores a chance to comment or rectify any issues.
• Checks and balances: Each rating is reviewed and edited by multiple analysts and editors to reduce errors and mitigate any potential bias.
• Accountability and disclosure: We accept no money from publishers we rate, disclose any potential conflicts of interest, and require our analysts to avoid working on ratings for any publication for which they might have any conflicts.

Podcast, TV, and CTV ratings

For longer form video and audio content, NewsGuard offers tailored ratings accounting for the differences in content across content types.

Our TV and CTV Reliability Ratings enable advertisers to plan media buys responsibly while reaching valuable news audiences.

Our Podcast Reliability Ratings enable advertisers and podcasting platforms to make informed choices about which news and information podcasts to feature and advertise on.