The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an investigation into media rating organizations like Ad Fontes Media and NewsGuard, raising serious concerns about fairness in digital advertising.
Perhaps more importantly, concerns about who gets to shape public trust.
At the heart of the probe is whether these agencies have colluded with advertisers to marginalize conservative news outlets through low credibility scores.
That kind of coordination could violate antitrust law. More broadly, it could skew the online information marketplace.
Critics have long pointed out that some news ratings systems consistently score conservative platforms lower than their liberal peers.
According to recent reports, NewsGuard gives HuffPost an 87.5% trust rating.
Fox News? Just 69.5%.
The Washington Times trails even further at 62%.
When advertisers rely on these scores to decide where to spend money, a low grade doesn’t just sting; it can seriously shrink a publication’s income.
On May 20, the FTC issued Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to Ad Fontes Media and Media Matters.
They’re being asked to hand over years of records; communications, finances, methodologies, and any coordination with others, including NewsGuard.
Ad Fontes has called the request excessive but says it will cooperate. Media Matters is doing the same.
NewsGuard hasn’t received a subpoena (at least not yet) but it’s listed among 13 entities tied to the Ad Fontes inquiry. That raises eyebrows.
If any of these groups are working together to steer advertisers away from certain political views, they could be crossing legal lines and undermining basic marketplace fairness.
NewsGuard says its ratings are nonpartisan and grounded in journalistic standards. A 2025 study by the Complexity Science Hub backs that up.
It looked at more than 11,000 outlets and found no clear evidence of political bias. The study said most lower-rated conservative sites simply didn’t meet standards for transparency or corrections.
That said, perception matters.
Conservative lawmakers and watchdogs argue that whatever the intent, the result is clear: right-leaning outlets take the hit.
If your editorial voice doesn’t match what’s considered the gold standard by these raters, your business can suffer.
This leads to serious legal and ethical questions.
If the FTC finds that ratings firms conspired to limit advertising revenue to select outlets, it could take action under federal antitrust law. So far, courts have protected these ratings as opinion under the First Amendment.
NewsGuard itself has won in court against defamation charges, successfully arguing its scores are professional judgments, not statements of fact.
Still, the FTC may now be asking: do those judgments become problematic when used in lockstep with others to influence ad dollars?
We don’t have all the answers yet. This investigation is just getting started, but the implications are real.
Who defines trust? And who gets to decide which voices get heard?
This article was written with the assistance of AI. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
