A company that evaluates news outlets and websites to see which produce reliable journalism says it’s under attack by the Trump administration
A media-rating company says a Trump agency is threatening its livelihoodBy DAVID BAUDERAP Media WriterThe Associated Press
As media organizations go, NewsGuard cuts a low public profile as it follows its mission of issuing credibility ratings about news outlets. The Trump administration knows about it, though, and the company has joined a lengthening list of journalism organizations to face the White House’s wrath.
A dispute between President Donald Trump’s regulators and the news monitoring service has spilled into court, with NewsGuard Technologies suing the Federal Trade Commission and its chairman, Andrew Ferguson, to shut down an investigation. The FTC accuses the company of trying to suppress conservative speech. NewsGuard says it is being forced to kneel before vindictive power.
Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, the Republican administration has fought The Associated Press in court over the outlet’s claim it is being punished for not adopting his preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico; settled with CBS News’ corporate parent in a dispute over “60 Minutes” editing; sued The Wall Street Journal for its reporting on Trump and Jeffrey Epstein; and is in a legal fight with The New York Times over Pentagon reporting restrictions.
NewsGuard’s lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, accuses Trump’s FTC of “brazenly using its power not for any issue concerning trade or commerce but rather to censor speech simply because it disagreed with NewsGuard’s judgments about the reliability of news sources.”
The FTC calls NewsGuard’s accusations “untethered from both law and fact.”
Like the Federal Communications Commission under Brendan Carr, Ferguson’s FTC is a normally sleepy federal agency that has sprung to life to address issues of importance to Trump and his supporters, particularly involving the media. The FCC has launched investigations of media companies and this weekend Carr, responding to a Trump complaint about negative coverage of the Iran war, warned broadcasters “running hoaxes and news distortions” to correct course or see their licenses threatened.
Ferguson has made no secret about where he takes his cues. He said in an interview in July that “I am a law enforcer, and I will follow the law. But the policy priorities are set by the man the people chose to run this government.”
The liberal lobbying group Media Matters for America was one of his targets. A federal judge last summer halted an FTC investigation over efforts to promote advertising boycotts of companies the group opposes, saying the inquiry violated MMA’s free speech rights.