OPINION:
Spoiler alert: College students will only get more radical — but not for the reasons you might think.
This needs to be understood as campuses continue to grapple with antisemitic and pro-terrorist demonstrations. Parents, employers and political leaders have all pointed the finger at higher education’s near-universal embrace of leftist ideology. They also point out that universities recruit students more likely to toe a radical line. But something even more insidious is happening at the high school level and earlier. Under the guise of fighting “misinformation,” millions of K-12 students are being funneled toward hard-left media content. They’re being primed for a life of leftist activism.
While public education has long leaned left, the widespread and deliberate steering of students toward liberal media sites has been happening for only the last two years. In 2022, the American Federation of Teachers — a powerful teachers union with 1.7 million members — announced a partnership with a third-party company called NewsGuard. The company wants teachers to ensure that tens of millions of students aren’t “misled by dubious outlets and spam sites posing as ‘news.’” The partnership even makes NewsGuard’s services available to students outside of school on their personal devices.
NewsGuard bills itself as providing “reliability ratings for news outlets,” but in practice, it discriminates against right-of-center media. The typical left-leaning outlet gets an A, but on the right, the average is a D. When students are looking for sources for papers or trying to keep up with the news, they’re pushed toward decidedly slanted outlets. Should Israel call a cease-fire with Hamas? Check. Is America systemically racist? Check. Is another government program the solution to this, that, and the other social or economic problem? Check, check, always check.
That the American Federation of Teachers has embraced this tool is telling. This teachers union is among the most leftist organizations in the United States, and in NewsGuard, it has found a partner to help indoctrinate students in a far-left worldview. But the problem doesn’t end with the discouragement of students clicking on stories from right-leaning media outlets. NewsGuard works in a way that makes it harder for such outlets to survive.
NewsGuard is frequently used by advertising agencies to determine where companies should spend their marketing dollars. Companies are less likely to advertise when a media outlet is tarred as untrustworthy or biased. Yet every right-of-center media outlet needs advertising dollars to operate. When they make less money, they can’t hire as many journalists or publish as many stories, and over time, they may struggle to keep the lights on. Whatever the case, the result is the same: fewer right-leaning stories for students to read and news sites for them to visit.
To be sure, the American Federation of Teachers isn’t the only entity using NewsGuard. More than 800 public libraries have adopted it, too, and the federal government has paid the company hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight “misinformation.” Nor is NewsGuard the only company advancing the liberal agenda under the guise of fact-checking and media reporting. The Global Disinformation Index and Ad Fontes, with its “Media Bias Chart,” are also concerning. But NewsGuard is the worst offender given its growing influence, especially in K-12 education.
When the teachers federation announced its partnership with NewsGuard, a variety of education groups, tech groups and conservative leaders called on state and federal lawmakers to recognize the threat. Yet nothing happened, and two years later, students in public schools are being steadily indoctrinated to an even greater degree. If lawmakers don’t take immediate steps to get liberal bias out of public education, the consequences will be severe.
Today’s college students are radical enough, setting up shanty encampments, becoming apologists for antisemites, and engaging in vandalism and violence. Imagine how much worse things will be when today’s high school students, trained to believe that The New York Times and NPR are oracles of truth, find themselves on the college campus.
• John Tillman is CEO of the American Culture Project.
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