A federal judge has thrown out a $13.6 million defamation lawsuit brought by Consortium News against the media ratings firm NewsGuard, delivering a blow to the independent outlet’s fight against what it views as reputational sabotage masked as media accountability. The suit, filed in 2023, centered on NewsGuard’s characterization of Consortium’s journalism, particularly its coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine, as misleading and unreliable.
We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.
NewsGuard, a for-profit company that partners with government agencies and private firms, and “misinformation,” had assigned Consortium News a failing trust score of 47.5 out of 100.
It accused the outlet of falling short in three categories: avoiding falsehoods, reporting responsibly, and issuing timely corrections. A “proceed with caution” warning label — first red, later changed to blue — was attached to the site, branding it as a publication that “generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability.”
Consortium News responded with a forceful legal challenge, arguing that the flag was defamatory and that the firm’s sweeping judgments were based on a cursory review of just five opinion pieces out of more than 20,000 articles and videos published on its platform. The complaint accused NewsGuard of misrepresenting its entire body of work.
On Wednesday, US District Judge Katherine Failla granted NewsGuard’s motion to dismiss the suit, ruling that Consortium News had failed to show the kind of “actual malice” required to sustain a defamation claim. In her opinion, Failla wrote that the plaintiffs didn’t offer concrete allegations that NewsGuard knowingly made false statements.
“Indeed, far from alleging that NewsGuard knew its statements to be false, Consortium News effectively concedes the truth of the ‘anti-U.S. perspective’ label, and acknowledges that ‘reasonable people’ could differ as to the truth or falsity of its reporting, undercutting any suggestion that NewsGuard knew its criticisms to be false and published those criticisms despite knowing them to be false,” Failla wrote.
NewsGuard, which has secured contracts with the US government and other institutional clients, argued in court that its evaluations are protected expressions of opinion and that its partnership with federal agencies does not convert it into a government actor. In its defense, it called its scoring framework “inherently subjective.”
