

METAMORA — Atlanta. Brussels. London. Rome.

Benson. Germantown Hills. Metamora. Roanoke. Don't forget Spring Bay and Washburn, too.

Those first four cities might not appear to have much in common with those last six. Except, perhaps, for Joel Shoemaker and his new, volunteer job in helping to combat "fake news."

The Illinois Prairie District Public Library director found out late last year he was appointed to an international advisory board for NewsGuard Technologies.

The 2-year-old firm created NewsGuard, an internet-browser extension that judges news sources' trustworthiness. The library uses NewsGuard on its computers.

NewsGuard reporters and editors review news sites and rate them based on nine criteria, with an emphasis on credibility and transparency.

Shoemaker is among eight library-affiliated people who are advising the NewsGuard News Literacy Program. The program features partnerships with about 700 public libraries in the United States and elsewhere.

"By assembling this board of advisers for our news literacy initiatives, we are able to complement that journalistic experience with expertise from the education sphere," said Sarah Brandt, the programs' vice president.

Other board members are based in Georgia and South Carolina, but also in Belgium, Italy and the United Kingdom, among other places.

Those locations and institutions are a bit larger and perhaps more well known than Shoemaker's library bailiwick, which covers a half-dozen small-town facilities in Woodford County. But valued opinions don't appear to be dependent on location.

"I think they wanted maybe a rural perspective on this new board," Shoemaker said recently during an interview in his cozy office at the Metamora branch.

"For the rural perspective to be important and to be noteworthy for NewsGuard is really impressive to me. They're very interested in our feedback from seeing this used in public libraries."

Shoemaker became acquainted with NewsGuard through a random email from Macaela Bennett, who was the organization's director of news literacy partnerships.

Bennett, who is from Morton, now performs a similar function at Facebook. She wanted to know if Shoemaker was interested in using NewsGuard at his operation.

"Librarians are in the business of providing as much information as we can. That's our M.O.," Shoemaker said. "I read (Bennett's) email and I was like, 'Yep, I want to do this.'"

Last summer, the Illinois Prairie District was the first library system in the state to adopt NewsGuard.

The NewsGuard founders are Stephen Brill, a lawyer/journalist who originated the Court TV cable channel, and Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Among investors is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a not-for-profit arts and journalism entity.

About 4,000 news sites have received a NewsGuard rating. The extension is available to the public for a monthly fee, but it's free for libraries and schools.

If a news site receives at least 60 out of 100 points, based on the criteria, NewsGuard gives it a "green" rating. Fewer than 60 points merits a "red" rating.

Once NewsGuard is installed on a computer, a shield-like icon appears next to news sites listed on Facebook and in internet searches, including Google. A hover and/or click reveals ratings and details.

"You're still free to click on any website you want," Shoemaker said. "We're just giving you more information about the journalism source before you click on it. It's super-important that they're able to ignore if if they want to."

Illinois Prairie District libraries use a third NewsGuard rating option. Not green or red, it lists background about each site and whether NewsGuard approved each criterion.

"So that's even more neutral," Shoemaker said. "I didn't want my patrons to be confused by a red-green system."

NewsGuard bills itself as nonpartisan. The organization found right-leaning Fox News and left-leaning Huffington Post as equal, roughly, in trustworthiness.

If a website fails any criteria, NewsGuard representatives contact it for comment. Answers are published. Each NewsGuard reviewer is identified, with his or her credentials and background.

Satire sites are duly noted. NewsGuard doesn't check the veracity of opinion pieces. Sites that feature non-vetted user-generated content, like Wikipedia, aren't rated.

Reaction from Illinois Prairie District library users has been positive, according to Shoemaker.

"Nobody is like, 'This is a conspiracy and I don't want this on our computers,'" he said. "We've got patrons who think it's super-valuable. They might just use it for websites they've never heard of."

As for the board, it's met once and individual members have chatted, via telephone and virtual applications. It's providing recommendations on how to improve the product for libraries, at least at first.

That doesn't necessarily mean Shoemaker isn't angling for a more interactive experience. His first request from NewsGuard was for comment about an item regarding the firm's attempted expansion to France.

"I was like, 'Are you sending me to France? How exciting,'" Shoemaker said with a laugh. "But it was just a phone call."

Joking aside, the library-affiliated board members appear to take seriously the NewsGuard mission.

Thanks to an abundance of untrustworthy news sites on the internet, being able to discern legitimate sources from disinformation campaigns is essential, according to board member Lucie Spicer.

"Without these skills, young people do not know who to trust or what information is real, which leads to a severe lack of engagement in the democratic process," said Spicer, who is based in London.

In Woodford County, Shoemaker takes perhaps a more practical view.

"We've done this with books for hundreds of years," he said. "If someone wants to check out a book, it's available, but it's in fiction or nonfiction (sections), so you know whether this is truth or fiction.

"I think it's a great product and it's especially great considering the low stakes with using it in a public institution and educational institution. I think it's really a no-brainer."

Nick Vlahos can be reached at 686-3285 or nvlahos@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @VlahosNick.
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