Newsmax has published false and unsubstantiated claims about vaccines and COVID-19.Ī partisan conservative website that regularly publishes hoaxes and false and unsubstantiated claims, including about U.S.
These websites have a record of routinely publishing falsehoods and, in most cases, declining to disclose to readers who owns the site and creates its content.Ī site that covers politics, culture, and health, and airs videos from its cable TV network. In this list, we have identified the least credible sites - meaning those that fail NewsGuard’s criteria for repeatedly sharing false content - that garnered the most social media engagement in 2021, according to internet metrics firm NewsWhip, starting with the site with the most engagement. Of course, some unreliable sites have more of an impact than others because they reach a much wider audience.
A site scoring below a 60 earns a Red, or generally unreliable, rating. NewsGuard awards websites a score from 0 to 100, depending on how many of NewsGuard’s nine credibility and transparency criteria (weighted in order of importance) the site meets. We also highlight a selection of the trustworthy sites that are producing reliable journalism, including for local and niche markets. In this report, we identify the misinformation websites with the most online engagement in 2021 in the United States. Throughout the year, NewsGuard has been tracking thousands of misinformation websites spreading false claims - as well as trusted news sites, some of them often overlooked- that consistently publish accurate, high-quality news. presidential election, false claims about election fraud threatened to undermine Americans’ faith in democracy – and helped spark the Jan. And in the wake of a divisive and close U.S. As much of the world raced to vaccinate its citizens against COVID-19, the internet and social media feeds were flooded with false, misleading, and unproven claims that questioned the vaccines’ safety and promoted unproven cures.
And PBS and Public Radio International drop shows hosted by Tavis Smiley in December after an investigation into allegations of misconduct.The real-world impact of misinformation - and the importance of quality journalism - were never more apparent than in the past year. 1 article published by New York magazine reveals multiple accounts of harassment involving John Hockenberry, former host of WNYC’s The Takeaway. Citing “inappropriate behavior,” Minnesota Public Radio cuts ties with former Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor Nov. 20 about multiple accounts of inappropriate behavior by PBS host Charlie Rose the network drops Rose’s show the next day. The Washington Post publishes an exposé Nov. Chief news editor David Sweeney also leaves NPR later in November following an investigation of sexual harassment complaints by two employees.
The same day, NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik reports on a complaint filed by an NPR producer about an incident involving Oreskes in October 2015. A Washington Post article published the same day details accusations against Oreskes of incidents of sexual harassment that occurred in the 1990s. The flood of revelations about sexual harassment in the media world engulfs public media as NPR puts Senior VP of News Michael Oreskes on leave.