Verbatim: NewsGuard’s Inquisitiveness, and RealClearInvestigations' Reply

RealClearInvestigations
November 15, 2023

Main Story: NewsGuard, the Surrogate the Feds Pay to Be a Judge of the Truth

From: Kendrick McDonald <kendrick.mcdonald@newsguardtech.com>
Sent: Friday, November 1, 2019 5:12 PM
To: Tom Kuntz <tkuntz@realclearinvestigations.com>
Subject: Inquiry from NewsGuard

Hi Mr. Kuntz,

My name is Kendrick and I'm a reporter with NewsGuard. I believe you corresponded with one of my former colleagues, Josh Keefe, last year when we first published a review of Real Clear Investigations.

I'm in the process of updating our review and wanted to reach out for comment on a few things.

- RCI doesn't appear to have information about the nonprofit's major donors on the site, unless I missed it somewhere. This doesn't meet NewsGuard's standards for ownership disclosure, so I was wondering if RCI intends to add any information along these lines, or whether you have a comment?

- I also didn't find contact or biographical information for the writers of RCI original content, which is NewsGuard's standard for the disclosure of information about content creators. Does RCI intend to add more detail about its writers, or do you have a comment?

We intend to add information about RCI's recent investigation alleging to reveal the identity of the intelligence community whistleblower, and I'd like to ask a few questions about that story.

- Did any of the anonymous sources mentioned confirm that [Eric] Ciaramella is the whistleblower, or did they repeat discussions that he is potentially the whistleblower?

- Why did the website characterize the whistleblower's report as 'hearsay' when an independent report indicated that the whistleblower had firsthand knowledge of what he reported?

- Why did the report refer prominently to the whistleblower's bias without reporting that the ICIG [Intelligence Community Inspector General] stated it did not impact his judgement finding the complaint to be an "urgent concern"?

Thanks for your time.

Best regards,

Kendrick McDonald
Deputy Editor of Rapid Response & Senior Analyst
410-415-3872
NewsGuard Technologies

 

From: Tom Kuntz <tkuntz@realclearinvestigations.com>
Sent: Monday, November 4, 2019 9:33 AM
To: Kendrick McDonald <kendrick.mcdonald@newsguardtech.com>
Subject: Re: Inquiry from NewsGuard

Kendrick,

Since, as you acknowledge, I have been forthcoming to NewsGuard in the past, it's time for NewsGuard to reciprocate:

-- Is NewsGuard asking other top news organizations such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, and BuzzFeed whether they are trying to match our story in the interest of fairness to the accused [President Trump] and the 63 million people who voted for him? If not, why not?

-- Has NewsGuard made similar inquiries to those five organizations about their acceptance over the past three-plus years of illegal anonymous leaks from the intelligence community, leaks including Democrat-funded opposition research tracing back to Russian sources, concerning allegations found by a costly, lengthy federal investigation not to be criminal acts or even plausible -- leaks that ultimately damaged lives, careers and reputations that seemed clearly driven by political animus rather than a concern for the public interest? When the news organizations had reasons to know that this was the case when they accepted many of the leaks, yet to date have failed to give their readers/viewers that context or identify the criminal leakers?

If so, please share me with the responses to those inquiries by NewsGuard.

-- Also, since I'm not putting NewsGuard on my browser, could you send me NewsGuard's current assessments of the five news organizations named above?

I'd be greatly appreciative.

Thanks

Tom

Tom Kuntz
Editor, RealClearInvestigations

Note: NewsGuard didn't respond to RealClearInvestigations' questions posed in its reply above.