The Poynter Institute, a journalism nonprofit organization, has had to scrap a list it created of “unreliable” news sources due to complaints about the outlets included.

By Liam Quinn | Fox News

A journalism watchdog has been forced to scrap a list of “unreliable” news sources because, as it turns out, the list wasn’t reliable.

The Poynter Institute, a journalism nonprofit organization, initially released a list of more than 500 “unreliable” news outlets purportedly “built from pre-existing databases compiled by journalists, fact-checkers and researchers around the country.”

But a number of prominent conservative-leaning outlets were included in the “unreliable” category, including The Washington Examiner, Washington Free Beacon, Daily Caller and other publications that employ scores of journalists covering Congress, elections, the White House and more. The index was created with the help of an employee for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The walk-back was gradual. First, the authors reversed the inclusion of The Washington Examiner after further review. But the paper’s executive editor, Philip Klein, complained that the group was still urging an advertiser blacklist for those outlets still included — calling the process behind the list opaque and arbitrary.

.@Poynter has corrected its fake news list: “This index previously listed The Washington Examiner and FirstPost as unreliable news sources. After reviewing our methodology, we found that neither met the criteria for inclusion, so both were removed.” https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/unreliable-news-index/ …An index of unreliable news websitesVisit the post for more.poynter.org

I am glad to see the error of the Examiner’s inclusion corrected, but I still believe it is worrisome to call for advertisers blacklisting news organizations, especially given the opacity of the process and arbitrariness of many of the judgements.

Poynter’s managing editor, Barbara Allen, posted a mea culpa Thursday as the backlash built.

“On Tuesday, April 30, Poynter posted a list of 515 ‘unreliable’ news websites, built from pre-existing databases compiled by journalists, fact-checkers and researchers around the country. Our aim was to provide a useful tool for readers to gauge the legitimacy of the information they were consuming,” the statement read.

“Soon after we published, we received complaints from those on the list and readers who objected to the inclusion of certain sites, and the exclusion of others. We began an audit to test the accuracy and veracity of the list, and while we feel that many of the sites did have a track record of publishing unreliable information, our review found weaknesses in the methodology.

“We detected inconsistencies between the findings of the original databases that were the sources for the list and our own rendering of the final report.”

EIt continued: “Therefore, we are removing this unreliable sites list until we are able to provide our audience a more consistent and rigorous set of criteria. The list was intended to be a starting place for readers and journalists to learn more about the veracity of websites that purported to offer news; it was not intended to be definitive or all encompassing.

“We regret that we failed to ensure that the data was rigorous before publication, and apologize for the confusion and agitation caused by its publication. We pledge to continue to hold ourselves to the highest standards.”

The institute continued to face fallout for the blunder, with many noting the irony of how the “unreliable” news outlets list was itself not reliable.

With this error, @Poynter needs to include itself in any future ‘unreliable’ website lists.

Poynter has taken down the specious blacklist of journalists it published yesterday. They’ve issued an apology for their poor effort in vetting the list before calling for an ad boycott of everyone on it.

Ashe Schow@AsheSchow

It turns out a list of “unreliable news” websites is itself unreliable:https://www.dailywire.com/news/46703/journalism-school-poynter-publishes-list-ashe-schow …262:19 PM – May 2, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacyJournalism School Poynter Publishes List Of ‘Unreliable News.’ It Turns Out The List Itself Is…A well-known journalism school published a list of what it claimed was “unreliable news websites.” As one might expect, the list itself was “unreliable.”dailywire.comSee Ashe Schow’s other Tweets

(((AG)))@AG_Conservative

Poynter’s list of unreliable sites is completely unreliable. They included several respectable sites on the right while omitting some of the most unreliable political sites on the left (ex: ThinkProgress). They should put themselves at the top of the list.IFCN✔@factchecknetUpdate: After further review, we’ve removed two publishers (@dcexaminer and @firstpost) from our unreliable news index https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/unreliable-news-index/ …1118:01 PM – May 1, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacy32 people are talking about this

The databases curated to create the list included ones maintained by Annenberg Public Policy Center, Snopes, PolitiFact, and Merrimack University, researcher Barrett Golding wrote in a now-deleted report explaining the botched index.

Golding is also a producer with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Liam Quinn is a Senior Editor at Fox News. He can be found on Twitter at @liampatquinn

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