An excellent adjunct to fact-checking news stories by providing evaluation of media sources' "trustworthiness." NewsGuard's operational of definition of trustworthiness is based on nine criteria, with each site evaluated given a full "report card" based on each of those criteria. A summary evaluation is also arrived at, but the individual evaluations are key. The extension has worked fine for me. My main disappointment is NewsGuard's recent announcement that it plans to start charging for access to its evaluations, which have been free until now.

UPDATE 17 Mar 2020: I noticed a surprising number of extreme reviews for NewsGuard, so I scanned the "5s" and "1s" to get a better sense of what was going on. The 5s seem like a typical mix of vague, highly specific, and everything in between. The 1s seem to fll into three groups: 1) disappointment in the extension changing from free to subscription-based (a disappointing fact I noted in my original review); 2) general disappointment that some sites were given better or poorer evaluations than the reviewer felt was justified; and 3) non-specific negative reviews that reasonably may have been posted solely to lower NewsGuard's credibility as a source for evaluating the quality of news websites. This wreaks of an anti-NewsGuard campaign—perhaps started by sites that received negative ratings.

Obviously, I cannot prove whether there is/was a campaign to disparage NewsGuard, but I encourage those who are considering installing the NewsGuard extension to read a core sample of the reviews with 1-star ratings and decide for yourselves. If you are considering paying monthly for this kind of service, which many people can hardly afford, at least get a sense of how reliable the negative NewsGuard reviews seem to be before you decide.

Dieses AddOn erteilt Ritterschläge für US-treue transatlantische Medien. Muss man wissen.

Die Idee hinter der Erweiterung ist gut. Und gerade für Nutzer:innen, die viel auf sozialen Medien unterwegs sind und dort Links von allen möglichen Seiten zugespielt bekommen, ist ein solches System vielleicht hilfreich. Gut ist in dem Zusammenhang, dass auch kleinere Blogs etc. überprüft werden, die auch dem medienaffinen Menschen ggf. nicht geläufig sind.

Allerdings zeigt die Erweiterung auch, wie schwierig es ist "brauchbaren Journalismus" zu definieren. Die Datenbank zielt offenkundig auf Transparenz und Nachvollziehbarkeit ab. Schön und gut – aber ein geeignetes Maß für journalistische Qualität ist das (allein) nicht.

So ist z.B. die BILD vertrauenswürdig; Obwohl BILD einen zumindest fragwürdigen Umgang mit eigenen Fehlern hat, regelmäßig wissentlich Unwahrheiten verbreitet und auch sonst journalistische Standards mit Füßen tritt (und regelmäßig gerügt und/oder verklagt wird). Auch andere Publikationen, die ich für borderline halte, bekommen ein grünes Placet.

Andererseits ist die Erweiterung geeignet, wirklich schlimme, aber wenig bekannte, Seiten zu vermeiden. Und dass Junge Freiheit, Daily Mirror und Öko-Test nicht immer den gebotenen journalistischen Standards entsprechen, weiß man ja vielleicht auch, wenn sie ein grünes Icon tragen.

Diese Erweiterung zeigt Bild.de als vertrauenswürdige News-Seite an. Sorry, das geht gar nicht!

Kann ja nicht neutral sein, wenn ehemalige Direktoren von US-Geheimdiensten und ehemalige Mitglieder der US-Regierung im Vorstand sitzen!

Newsguard's professional approach to its assessments has actually generated more responsibility in the media industry, but rather than simply a green tick or a red X, they might consider at least an amber light for the likes of Fox News, which has a pass rating.

Co-founders Brill and Crovitz have been in the game for a long time, both with a history of some left-field projects, yet I think they've done well with this one with a seemingly qualified and reliable team.

They are gradually expanding around the world, and this will be useful and informative for Europeans and Asians.

I'd probably give it around a 4.6/7 star for now but it's certainly on the way up. Definitely a high-quality product.

This is a great add-on that judges news outlets by objective, unbiased standards of journalistic integrity. Many people rate this one star because it correctly rates their preferred news source as risky, biased, or untrustworthy. This outlet doesn't rate sites by their political leanings, it rates them based on objective standards such as their record on correcting false information, disclosing ownership and possible conflicts of interest, whether they handle fact / opinion responsibly, and whether they routinely publish false statements. Because of this, the ratings aren't based on politics, they're based on journalism as they should be.

NewsGuard claims to fight fake news, but it merely trashes web sites for which it has a political disagreement. It hides behind reviews that only appear to NewsGuard users and are not made publicly available in a manner in which they can be corrected or commented on. NewsGuard provides very little proof of its contentions other than claiming certain articles or false or saying there is disagreement about a certain point. NewsGuard is not a reliable source for information about fake news web sites.

No option to stop it's tab from opening automatically. (that I could find)

NewsGuard does a good job of giving reasons why they rated a site a certain way. Their reasons are generally about journalistic integrity (funding sources, willingness to correct errors, making opinion/fact differences apparent) not political leanings, which is good. In general, I don't like to rely on the overall rating (green or red) that they give, but I find the breakdown of "nutrition facts" very useful. I feel like the categories they choose to rate on have given me a vocabulary of attributes to look for in all news and information outlets, even when I'm not using the extension.