Media Masters - Gordon Crovitz and Steven Brill

Gordon Crovitz and Steven Brill are co-CEOs of NewsGuard. Founded in 2018, their mission is to rate the trustworthiness of more than 7,000 news and information websites, and give every site its own “nutrition label” based on transparency and integrity. Prior to leading NewsGuard, Steven founded The American Lawyer, Court TV, and the Yale Journalism Initiative; while Gordon was executive VP for Dow Jones and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. In this in-depth interview, they share how witnessing the depressing rise of fake news and the genuine harm it’s doing, gave them the idea for a platform which assesses the credibility of news outlets; discuss the nine criteria they use to rate news platforms - for example, how well a publication distinguishes between fact and opinion, and whether it clearly labels advertisements; and reflect on what has become their biggest challenge - tackling the “avalanche of covid-19 misinformation” and hoax sites getting more engagements than responsible health sites during the pandemic.