Don’t be fooled by partisan sites masquerading as real news | Opinion

Americans’ trust in the news media has plummeted — but they still trust their local newspaper. A 2019 Gallup study found that 85% of Americans trust local news organizations, while just 62% said they trust national news.

In Pennsylvania, that trust is generally warranted. In the “Pennsylvania News Trust Report” — a study released Monday by my organization, NewsGuard, with funding from the Lenfest Institute — we assessed more than 150 Pennsylvania news websites against nine basic, journalistic criteria to determine how credible they are. (The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a subsidiary of the Philadelphia Foundation, owns The Inquirer.) On average, local news outlets here in the Keystone State received a 93.4% trust score — indicating that they adhere strongly to journalistic practices.

But we also found an alarming trend that threatens to exploit and undermine Pennsylvanians’ trust in local news. Along with many trustworthy publications, we found nearly 50 examples of websites designed to look like local newspapers — with names like “Shenango Valley News” and “Keystone Today” — but which are actually run by partisan political actors with undisclosed agendas.

Here in Philadelphia, for example, a reader might encounter two similar-looking local news sites, one called “Philly Trib” and the other called “Philly Leader.” At first glance, both appear to be normal local newspaper websites.

» READ MORE: Partisan Pa. websites masquerading as local news threaten trust in journalism, new report finds

But in terms of trust, the sites are nothing alike. PhillyTrib.com is the website of the Philadelphia Tribune. Founded in 1884, it is “the oldest continuously published newspaper reflecting the African American experience,” with a rich history of coverage impacting the civil rights movement. It earned a 100-point trust score in our review, adhering to all nine of the journalistic criteria we assess.

Philly Leader, on the other hand, is part of Metric Media, a network of more than 1,000 websites nationwide that present themselves as regular local news outlets — but which actually are run by a conservative political consultant and have been found to publish “coverage that is ordered up by Republican groups and corporate P.R. firms,” according to the New York Times.

The Philly Leader’s website says it offers “objective, data-driven information without political bias.” But like most Metric Media sites, its content consists mainly of articles attacking Democratic politicians and praising Republican ones. As the New York Times described, “many of the stories are directed by political groups and corporate P.R. firms to promote a Republican candidate or a company or to smear their rivals.”

In Pennsylvania, Metric Media operates 45 different websites of this kind.

The issue is not limited to just one political party. For example, the website Keystone Newsroom describes itself as “a local news site for Pennsylvania” where “facts and first-hand sources are our north star.” The only problem? The site is owned by ACRONYM, a Democratic organization that runs a political action committee with the goal to “elect progressive candidates across the country” by using “targeted media programs” to mobilize voters, according to its website. ACRONYM spent $1.27 million promoting Keystone Newsroom’s content to Pennsylvania voters, with targeted Facebook ads leading up to the 2020 election.

Sites like these threaten to undermine Pennsylvanians’ trust in local news. So how do we fight back?

The best solution to news manipulation is news literacy. Every reader should know how to assess the sources of news they encounter, understanding who is behind each source and what its agenda might be. And students should be taught those skills in school.

At NewsGuard, we’ve built one tool to help users do so — an app that displays our trust ratings for news sites next to links in search results and social media feeds. If platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google began providing users with more context on the news sources they encounter, readers would build greater news literacy skills.

Meanwhile, we all can play a role in creating a trustworthy news ecosystem by remembering one simple rule: Be sure to check the source before you share an article — even this one.

Matt Skibinski is the general manager of NewsGuard, an organization that rates the credibility and transparency of news outlets based on journalistic criteria.