Bill Kristol Correctly Describes NewsGuard: ‘Establishment People’ Like ‘Establishment Websites’

In a March 2018 interview with NewsGuard Executive Editor James Warren, establishment conservative Bill Kristol correctly noted that NewsGuard, an app and browser plug-in which allows users to avoid what it considers “fake news” websites, would face skepticism since “establishment people” like “establishment websites.” NewsGuard has added Breitbart News, the Drudge Report, and the Daily Mail to its “fake news” blacklist.

“But you’re doing something different, which is more like – to use the restaurant analogy, it occurs to me – I don’t know, a Michelin Guide or something, where ‘experts’ are saying, ‘this is really excellent,’ and, ‘this is sort of not quite as good’ and trust us because we’re, you know, the best professional restaurant reviewers or chefs,” declared Kristol during the interview. “I’m not saying that sarcastically. I mean, I think it is – and honestly, I don’t even know – I mean, I’m sure there are studies done on Michelin Guide versus Yelp as better guides to where to go out to dinner in D.C., but I think that’s very interesting.”

“And people – it seems to me that people haven’t really thought of that yet, though. That the – Well, I don’t know. I guess there’s such suspicion of the mainstream media; I guess the counter-argument to what you’re doing is, well, this is a bunch of establishment people deciding they like establishment websites,” Kristol continued. “And that will be, I suppose, what Breitbart will say, right, or something.”

NewsGuard lists Breitbart News, the Daily Mail, and the Drudge Report as fake news websites, but gives the all-clear to CNN, Buzzfeed, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Vice News, despite recent high profile fake news stories from a variety of these approved sites.