Can You Make A Profit Fighting Misinfo? NewsGuard's Gordon Crovitz

Disinformation is good business. Spreading lies and outrage tends to be profitable, thanks to programmatic advertising, which cares only about traffic, not truth, and funding by state actors like Russia, which pour money into narratives that undermine democracies. Supporting truth is a tougher commercial prospect, but today’s guest is giving it a credible run.

Gordon Crovitz is the co-founder, with Steven Brill, of NewsGuard - a five-year-old for-profit enterprise that rates news sites for editorial integrity helping news consumers and advertisers avoid sites that spread toxic disinformation. Crovitz comes to NewsGuard after a distinguished career as a journalist and media entrepreneur. He was publisher of the Wall Street Journal, as well as an award-winning columnist for that paper.

Before NewsGuard, he founded or cofounded Factiva and Online Journalism—so he’s no stranger to media startups. Gordon and Eric discuss NewsGuard’s business model, his decision to take up the cause of countering disinformation, the role of advertising in funding lies and the explosion of artificial intelligence in the information ecosystem and what seekers of truth can do about it.


Topics

00:00
Introduction and Background
00:23
The Need for Trustworthy Journalism
01:12
The Problem of Identifying News Sources
02:10
The Role of Advertising in Misinformation
03:40
NewsGuard as a For-Profit Model
04:39
NewsGuard's Data and Reports
06:34
Ads Supporting Misinformation on Social Media
08:23
News Reliability Ratings and Misinformation Fingerprints
09:33
Examples of News Ratings
12:15
The Importance of Misinformation Fingerprints
16:55
Trust in Media and Political Bias
20:29
Challenges in Steering Ads to Reliable Sources
24:57
The State of Professional Journalism
29:56
Losing the Battle Against Misinformation
31:39
The Need for Regulation and Disclosure
35:50
Approaching Social Media Regulation
38:59
Gordon Crovitz's News Consumption Habits
44:24
Conclusion


This episode was produced by Tom Platts

Website - free episode transcripts
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Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
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Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com