I am writing on behalf of The Independent Media Council (IMC) to voice support for efforts to
prevent the indoctrination of political ideology into students at their public schools and
libraries. Schools should be places where young minds can develop critical thinking skills to
formulate their own opinions and make important decisions. Further, parents should be able to
send their kids to school or the library with the confidence that they will be free from political
agendas.
Unfortunately, millions of families throughout the country are being denied this freedom due to
the infiltration of content-rating services installed in computer browsers that impose ideological
filters under the guise of fact-checking. NewsGuard is one such media monitoring service. For
example, when a student goes to certain news sites for a research project, they will be told that
it’s not credible if NewsGuard’s politically-biased, subjective rating system deems it as such.
Studies show media monitoring services overwhelmingly favor liberal media sites.
According to Media Research Center and Al Sides Media, NewsGuard’s ranking system was
found to be heavily biased in favor of left-wing news sites, while discrediting conservative
leaning news sites like Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Caller, Washington Times, Daily Wire, and
others. In fact, outlets rated ‘left’ or ‘lean left’ received an average NewsGuard score of 93/100.
Sites considered ‘right’ or ‘lean right’ had an average NewsGuard rating of 65/100, an all-time
low in the three-year history of MRC’s study.
The IMC is comprised of conservative and independent media outlets and aligned organizations
that stand for free speech and a free press. We believe that students should be exposed to a
variety of viewpoints and perspectives so they may learn to think for themselves, not what a
for-profit media monitoring service tells them to think.
States can act now by adopting policies to ensure that students in K-12 schools and public
libraries are not subject to politically partisan teaching materials, digital tools, or curricula that
are unnecessarily restrictive in their range of political viewpoints or information sources and
that require K-12 schools and public libraries refrain from working with organizations that use
combating “mis-, dis-, and misinformation,” or “hate speech” as a pretext to censor and
blacklist their ideological and political rivals.
Our kids are America’s future. Let’s give them the critical thinking they need to lead and instill in
them the importance of free speech and a free press.
Sincerely,
Christine Czernejewski
Membership Director
The Independent Media Council
