About
NewsGuard BrandGuard is an enterprise-grade media intelligence solution that assigns reliability ratings to over 35,000 online news sources across the web, social media, TV/CTV networks, and podcasting platforms. Powered by a team of expert journalists, each source is evaluated against a rigorous set of apolitical journalistic criteria, producing a numeric reliability score from 0 to 100 alongside 30+ descriptive metadata fields covering ownership, content type, and editorial operations. Designed for brands, advertisers, AI developers, and digital platforms, BrandGuard helps organizations prevent their content, ads, or AI outputs from being associated with misinformation. Key products include Brand Misinformation Monitoring, FAILSafe for AI (preventing AI systems from citing unreliable sources), NewsGuard for Advertising, and a Media Intelligence Dashboard. Ratings cover publishers responsible for over 95% of online news engagement globally, and are continuously refreshed to stay current. The solution integrates easily into existing workflows via API or cloud datastream, making it suitable for automated brand safety pipelines. It is used by research institutions, reputation management teams, security and defense organizations, news aggregators, and media literacy educators. NewsGuard also produces specialized trackers for geopolitical disinformation events, such as the Russia-Ukraine Disinformation Tracker and Israel-Hamas War Tracking Center.
Key Features
- 35,000+ Source Coverage: Reliability ratings for over 35,000 online news and media sources covering 95%+ of online news engagement worldwide, including web, social media, TV/CTV, and podcasts.
- 30+ Data Points Per Source: Each rated publisher receives a 0–100 reliability score plus more than 30 metadata fields covering ownership, content practices, editorial standards, and corrections policies.
- Brand Misinformation Monitoring: Real-time alerts and monitoring to ensure brand advertisements and content do not appear alongside misinformation or unreliable news sources.
- FAILSafe for AI: Prevents AI systems and large language models from citing or amplifying misinformation by integrating NewsGuard's reliability data directly into AI pipelines.
- API & Cloud Datastream Access: Flexible integration options via REST API, cloud datastream, or a web-based Media Intelligence Dashboard, enabling automated and scalable brand safety workflows.
Use Cases
- Preventing digital advertising from appearing alongside misinformation-spreading news websites to protect brand reputation.
- Integrating news reliability data into AI language model pipelines to block citations from low-credibility sources.
- Helping news aggregators and content platforms surface only verified, trustworthy news sources to their users.
- Supporting academic researchers and media literacy organizations studying misinformation patterns across the open web.
- Enabling reputation management teams to monitor and respond to brand mentions in misinformation-heavy media environments.
Pros
- Journalist-Verified Ratings: Ratings are produced by human journalists using transparent, nonpartisan criteria—not algorithmic black boxes—providing defensible and auditable brand safety decisions.
- Broad and Continuously Updated Coverage: With 35,000+ sources refreshed regularly, coverage spans news, podcasts, TV, and social media, keeping brand safety measures current as the media landscape evolves.
- Multi-Use Integration: Accessible via API, dashboard, or datastream, making it easy to embed into ad tech stacks, AI systems, content platforms, or research workflows.
Cons
- Enterprise Pricing: BrandGuard is a paid, enterprise-focused solution with no publicly listed pricing, requiring a demo request—potentially cost-prohibitive for small businesses or individual users.
- Focused on News and Media Sources Only: Coverage is limited to news and media publishers; it does not rate user-generated content platforms, social media profiles, or individual content creators directly.
- Requires Integration Effort: Extracting full value from the API or cloud datastream requires technical resources and integration work, which may be a barrier for non-technical teams.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is NewsGuard BrandGuard?
NewsGuard BrandGuard is a brand safety and media intelligence solution that provides reliability ratings for 35,000+ news and media sources, helping brands, advertisers, and AI platforms avoid association with misinformation.
How are news sources rated?
A team of expert journalists evaluates each source against a set of apolitical journalistic criteria, producing a reliability score from 0 to 100 along with 30+ metadata fields about the source's ownership, content, and operations.
How can I access NewsGuard's ratings?
Ratings are accessible via a web-based Media Intelligence Dashboard, a REST API, or a cloud datastream, allowing integration into ad tech platforms, AI pipelines, and content management systems.
What is FAILSafe for AI?
FAILSafe for AI is a NewsGuard product that integrates reliability data directly into AI systems to prevent large language models and AI-generated content from citing or propagating misinformation from unreliable sources.
Who uses NewsGuard BrandGuard?
BrandGuard is used by advertisers, digital platforms, AI developers, news aggregators, research institutions, reputation management firms, and security and defense organizations seeking to manage media reliability at scale.
