How It Works

NewsGuard’s trained journalists assess news websites for credibility and transparency. Our team of trained journalists and experienced editors is rating and reviewing thousands of news and information websites based on nine journalistic criteria — such as whether the site regularly publishes false content, reveals conflicts of interest, discloses financing, or publicly corrects reporting errors.

We use humans, not algorithms, to identify unreliable news because we believe our work should be done with transparency and accountability. When we issue a rating, the names of the journalists who worked on it are listed, along with their biographies and contact information. And whenever any website fails to meet one of our nine criteria, we call and email the site to attempt to give them a chance to comment. Algorithms do not call for comment.

We assign each news website a red or green rating — indicating its trustworthiness. Depending how a site performs on our nine criteria, it is assigned a color rating. Sites with green ratings follow basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Sites with red ratings do not.

NewsGuard’s analysts write a detailed description of each site they rate, describing the site’s background, ownership, content, and why it received its rating — including its performance on each of the nine criteria.