It’s with great pride that we can let you know that News OnTheWight has been thoroughly vetted by NewsGuard – the international news credibility and transparency organisation – and has been awarded their certification, passing with flying colours.
Trust in journalism has become a major issue around the world – and the Isle of Wight is no different.
NewsGuard was set up with the intention of helping the public understand which news providers are trustworthy.
Highest possible score
Not only has News OnTheWight gained coveted green acceptance flags in all of NewsGuard’s nine journalistic criteria, but has done so with the highest possible score/maximum pass rate – 100%.
By way of comparison: The Financial Times has a score of 100%; BBC News 95%; Sky News 95%; The Telegraph 87.5%; Daily Mail 77%; The Sun 75%.
OnTheWight is the only news publication on the Isle of Wight to have passed through NewsGuard’s extremely stringent process and met their high standards.
(Is credibility and transparency in news important to you?)
Trustworthy: Good for advertisers
As NewsGuard points out, their rating system is also helpful to advertisers,
“Finally, a way to protect brands by keeping ads off unreliable news Websites. The NewsGuard rating of news websites separates sites that are doing reliable journalism from purveyors of false or misleading news or disinformation.
“Advertisers use the NewsGuard ratings to build a list of reliable news sites safe for advertising and to keep ads off inappropriate sites.”
Who are NewsGuard?
Who are NewsGuard and why should they be trusted?
Founded in 2018 by two veteran journalists and news entrepreneurs – one founded the Yale Journalism Initiative, the other was publisher of The Wall Street Journal – they want to combat misinformation, because they “care deeply about reliable journalism’s pivotal role in democracy.”
Their Advisory Board is nothing short of stellar.
The concept is simple, “We help you decide which news sources to trust — with ratings from humans, not algorithms”.
Extremely thorough
Their execution is extremely thorough – Define a set of nine criteria to judge the credibility and transparency of a news organisation, employ trusted researchers and journalists to evaluate news outlets, have those ratings – Green, Yellow, or Red – scrutinised, reviewed and fact-checked at a experienced senior editorial level, then publish them for the world to see.
Final sign off for OnTheWight’s NewsGuard certification came from:
- Eric Effron – Editorial Director of NewsGuard, overseeing the editorial staff, founding editor of Reuters Legal
- Richard Sambrook – former Director of Global News for the BBC and director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University
How to see the NewsGuard ratings
NewsGuard has a simple plugin for Web browsers that shows you their rating against your search results to help you decide which news sources can be trusted.
They are currently offering a two-week free trial membership.
Your support for Trustworthy, quality journalism
Over 14 years ago, when we started what has become OnTheWight, one of the central founding principles was that the trust of our readers was the most important thing and that we must earn and retain that trust every day. OnTheWight is constantly striving to bring you the most reliable news we can.
What cannot be escaped is that good quality journalism is slow, painstaking and detailed – and all of those things take time and therefore cost more.
If you feel that this kind of quality journalism is important on the Island of Wight, please (consider) supporting our work with a monthly contribution.
It’s easy – You can set up regular monthly contributions or a one-off payment to OnTheWight through PayPal, (you don’t need a PayPal account, just a credit card or bank details to hand).
Your support means that we can not only pursue quality journalism, but we can keep adverts to a minimum.
