But the antitrust laws do not permit third parties to facilitate group boycotts among competitors.
Moreover, NewsGuard disputes the notion that they are going after conservative sites and not liberal ones.
Its not just Newsmax.
I think about it as an unvirtuous circle, said Crovitz.
The satellite company balked at what it saw as significant fees being demanded by the media outlet.
Newsmax accused DirecTV of a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship.
OAN did not respond to request for comment.
Brill, though, has spent a career in journalism, not politics.
He called Newsmaxs claim pure fiction as accurate as Newsmaxs reporting about voting machines in the 2020 election.
As a journalist I am probably best known for books taking down the Teamsters and teachers unions.
When I was not a journalist, I have donated to both Republicans and Democrats.
But what counts is that our rating criteria are apolitical and applied equally.
Newsmax is bitterly upset that its score is nearly 50 points below Fox News.
(Full disclosure: Deadline, which also is rated by NewsGuard, received a 100/100 score.)
Among them: The leftward DailyKos and the Russian site Pravda.
A similar provision was placed in this years bill.
But Crovitzhas disputedthe findings as a small sample of the more than 10,000 sites it has rated.
But there is little evidence to support that claim.
People are free to evaluate NewsGuards judgments, accept or reject them, and act accordingly.
The offices of Carr and Ferguson did not respond to requests for comment.
Antitrust experts also are skeptical of Fergusons suggestion that NewsGuard has legal exposure when it comes to antitrust law.
It is that collective effort that is the hard part, Kovacic said.
The challenge would be to prove that NewsGuard is engaging advertisers as a group to take a certain path.
NewsGuards Brill and Crovitz said that they are doing no such thing.
Brill said, Were not a licensee of the FCC.
They have zero jurisdiction.
If they had jurisdiction, what they would be purporting to penalize us for is for doing journalism.
