I'm not saying you should trust NewsGuard. I don't know much about them! But the categorical alarm you take to the entire concept of independent news vetting is problematic.
The problems aren't all one one side. There are problems with having technology like Newsguard, and there are problem with not having technology like it. Just today, I came across the phenomenon of partisan propaganda masquerading as local journalism (https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/03/04/activists-setup-local...).
I've never used Newsguard, but I really hope it flags stuff like "The Tennessee Star." It'd be a clue to question the source more, and God knows we need more clues to get through our hurried, overloaded lives.
It's also not really technology. It's a bunch of journalists doing ratings. Technology is just how they disseminate the ratings, but a lot different (and more accountable) than some kind of AI that tries to do this.
NewsGuard was created by media insiders with funding from media insider foundations. There is most definitely cause for worry there. Would you say china's media "experts" should control what the chinese citizens see? Would you say the same about russia, europe or anywhere in the world?
Blind appeal to authority is just as bad as blindly ignoring authority. I'm not saying I have the answers here. I don't know what the solution is. But I'm certain either extreme is bad for society.
By all means, pick NewsGuard apart.
Note that I'm not saying you should be forced to do that, just that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with it.
> you can't trust any organization to evaluate news sources. That can't be true.
But it can.
Successful delegation requires alignment of incentives, oversight or some (well founded) trust relationship. Otherwise, if the stakes are high enough (and if you get to shape the voting or news-consumption and non-consumption of a sizeable fraction of people, they are) bad things will happen to those who are willing delegate, in aggregate.
What makes the expert more trustworthy than the politician or news-source itself? Why would you be better at picking one than the other? Credentials? Max Boot is one of the “world's leading authorities on armed conflict” and well-credentialed (academically and organizationally). Do you trust him? Did the American Tax Payers get a good return of investment of following his expertise laid out in “The Case for American Empire” to the tune of a few trillion Dollars?
Tucker Carlson says no, we shouldn't trust Max Boot. Should we trust him instead? Why not?
The answer is that you can only delegate these things to the extent you're able and willing to critically evaluate the quality and basis of the advice (since you have no mechanism to align incentives). And I'd be shocked if you could come up with a single broadly trustworthy news source evaluation organization -- I am not aware of one, are you? Assuming there is one, how would it stay that way longer term?
You seem to be under the weird impression that I'm saying all experts are trustworthy. No, obviously not. I don't trust Max Boot (I trust Tucker Carlson far less). I'm selective about who I delegate parts of my decisionmaking to, and you should be too.
Again: the point isn't that NewsGuard is good (I have no idea if it is). The point is that the very concept of NewsGuard doesn't offend reason or civic virtue.
But "delegating" to me means completely offloading some task to a third party, even if it's one you've vetted before and maybe periodically check on.
To me, delegation in this sense for what news sources I expose myself to offends both reason and civic virtue.
I don't believe in the existence of particularly trustworthy new sources with broad coverage. That such trust is misplaced is easy to verify by picking a few particular examples where you can dig in a bit yourself. Therefore one should be able to get useful information from people one disagrees with or even believes to be evil or dishonest, as long as they're at least periodically willing to make cogent, evidence based arguments. I can despise Tucker Carlson and still agree with him on his evaluation of Max Boot, by looking up the evidence he presents and validating if it supports his claims. Same with Chomsky, Engelhardt etc.