House GOP launches investigation into federally funded news ratings group's impact on free speech

The House Oversight Committee announced this week that it has launched an investigation into a news-rating system that purportedly ranks which news outlets are trustworthy, with the focus of the probe surrounding whether the ratings group's contracts with federal agencies have an influence on what news it attempts to suppress.

Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said Thursday his committee was investigating NewsGuard's impact "on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns."

In a letter to Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard’s chief executive officers, Comer requested documents on the group's "business relationships with government entities, its adherence to its own policies intended to guard against appearances of bias, how it tries to avoid and manage potential conflicts of interest arising from its investors and other influences, and actions that may have the impact of delegitimizing factually accurate information."

"A primary concern for the Committee is the Department of Defense contract NewsGuard was awarded in 2021, which raises questions about the involvement of federal agencies in potential censorship campaigns," Comer wrote in the letter. "One concerned journalist expressed fear that NewsGuard’s activities are an extension of federal efforts — since struck down by courts — to coerce social media companies and to 'destroy the financial survival of disfavored outlets. . . . "

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Comer told the duo that his committee is looking to "make an independent determination about whether NewsGuard’s intervention on protected speech has been in any way