Learning Outcomes
You will understand what NewsGuard is.
You will understand how NewsGuard works.
You will learn more about how you can use this within TRAC.
Fake news? "Alternative facts"? Misinformation? In this digital age, where information dissemination is lightning fast, and sometimes with vast consequences, the ability to discern what is and who is credible has become important for PR, Comms and Marketing professionals.
This is where NewsGuard comes in. NewsGuard are a company that evaluates and rates the credibility and transparency of news and information websites. NewsGuard’s ratings and nutrition labels helps Brands and PR professionals identify credible websites, as well non-credible ones, and with this information at hand, they can quickly detect potential sources of misinformation before it spreads and becomes damaging to their client or brand. Our integration partnership with NewsGuard is therefore a strong USP for media monitoring on Pulsar and brings an additional layer of data analysis and insight.
How NewsGuard Works
Each site is rated using nine basic, apolitical criteria of journalistic practice, giving the site a score out of 100. These criteria measure the site on credibility and transparency and are listed in order of their importance in determining a Green or Red rating.
Does not repeatedly publish false content: (22 points)
Gathers and presents information responsibly: (18 points)
Regularly corrects or clarifies errors: (12.5 points)
Handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly: (12.5 points)
Avoids deceptive headlines: (10 points)
Website discloses ownership and financing: (7.5 points)
Clearly labels advertising: (7.5 points)
Reveals who’s in charge, including possible conflicts of interest: (5 points)
Provides the names of content creators, along with either contact or biographical information: (5 points)
Based on the nine criteria, each site gets an overall rating, which can be one of the following:
Green label - Generally trustworthy and credible source
Red label - Misinformer site and generally not trustworthy
Platform label - Agnostic or User Generated Content
Satire label - Satire site
For more information on NewsGuard and how they classify online sites, you can find out more here.
Value of NewsGuard data on Pulsar
By integrating NewsGuard ratings into Pulsar, we want to help users understand the overall nature of the conversation and measure the potential spread and impact of misinformation because of non-credible news sources in a dataset. We also want to go a step further, and help users identify the authors who are credible or non credible sources of information, based on the content they write, and the content they share. Through this integration you'll be able to glean some useful insights around the type of coverage you're getting, and so much more! We've put together below some of those use cases.
1. What’s the scale of misinformation?
Using the tool, we can understand and visualise the scale of non-credible data sources in a dataset, over time, by Volume, Visibility and by Media Reach.
2. What does the coverage look like?
Quickly discover the top content grouped by social shares, visibility, or media reach, and discern what's being published on credible sites, non-credible sites or even satirical ones.
3. What’s being shared, and therefore spreading?
Most Shared Websites highlight the domains that people on social media most frequently reference or link to when posting about a specific topic. In most cases, these sources include online news outlets, blogs, and discussion boards, where the majority of shared content originates.
Most Shared Links, on the other hand, display the exact URLs that users include in their posts when discussing a topic. Similarly, these links typically point to articles, blog posts, or discussions hosted on news sites, blogs, or community platforms.
Together, these two charts help you understand not just what content is being shared, but also where it’s coming from, providing valuable context around the credible or non-credible sources shaping online conversations.
4. Where's the content being produced?
This section provides insight into the online sources generating the content, helping you identify which sites are considered credible and which may be less trustworthy.
The table ranks websites based on both the volume of content or articles produced and their credibility score. Each entry includes a link to the site’s full nutrition label, which offers a detailed breakdown explaining how and why that credibility score was assigned.
5. Who is writing and who is sharing the content?
One effective way to assess the credibility and potential risk of misinformation related to your brand or the topic you're studying is by examining the authors who are writing for specific outlets, mostly journalists, as well as those who are sharing that media coverage on social media platforms such as X and Facebook. By analyzing the frequency with which these authors publish or share content from reliable or untrustworthy sources, you can identify users who may pose a potential risk of spreading misinformation. This approach allows you to gain a deeper understanding of the credibility and reputation of the sources that are being shared and helps you to identify and mitigate any potential risks.
📝 Note: Our naming conventions for this visual are different depending on your use case.
For PR & Comms users it is known as "Most Credible Contributors".
For General Listening users it is known as "Most Credible Influencers".
🚨 Important:
NewsGuard data is only available for data that has been collected from specific online websites that are covered by NewsGuard.
To check whether specific sites are covered or not, then please reach out to your Account Manager or Pulsar support.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article! 📚
If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team via live chat. 🚀