Quality journalism is vital to the health and wellbeing of our society—more so today than ever. Brands, for their part, have a role to play in supporting credible news sources via their advertising activities, but they must be able to do so with the utmost confidence that their dollars are going toward quality, brand-safe outlets and coverage.
To solve this challenge and deepen the resources available to today’s reputable journalism outlets, PubMatic is rolling out a new offering for advertisers in partnership with NewsGuard, a service that provides reliability scores and “Nutrition Labels” for thousands of news websites to help readers distinguish reliable sites from misinformation providers. Together, PubMatic and NewsGuard have created the Responsible News private marketplace to help brands buy inventory across more than 3,000 news sites that meet NewsGuard’s most important criteria for credibility.
With PubMatic’s new private marketplace, brands can support quality news websites while also ensuring that their brand is safe. This is especially relevant, for example, as advertisers look for brand-safe and non-political opportunities to advertise on news content during election cycles.
To address concerns about misinformation online, brands have traditionally relied on broad keyword blocklists, which disproportionately harm news sites, or they have ceased advertising on news altogether. The Responsible News private marketplace presents advertisers with a new option: Advertising on brand-safe, credible news inventory—with a publisher list built on NewsGuard’s Reliability Ratings, which covers the news and information sources that account for 97% of online engagement with news.
To be eligible for the Responsible News private marketplace, a site must:
- Receive an overall Green rating from NewsGuard, meaning it is generally trustworthy
- Adhere to NewsGuard’s most important credibility criteria as follows:
- Not repeatedly publishing false claims
- Gathering and presenting information responsibly
- Distinguishing news from opinion responsibly
- Avoiding deceptive headlines
- Sites that are highly opinionated or have a strong partisan leaning, and sites flagged for other trust issues (such as hidden political or government funding), are filtered out as well.
So, what does “responsible news” look like? This important curated list includes sites such as:
- Smithsonianmag.com: A magazine covering the Smithsonian Institution’s research and exhibitions.
- Oaklandslide.org: A nonprofit, online-only newspaper that covers Oakland, California.
- Navajotimes.com: A weekly newspaper that covers news related to the Navajo Nation.
- Bigthink.com: A site that publishes video interviews with experts across a range of academic fields, from health to philosophy to quantum physics.
- Venturebeat.com: A website that publishes research and breaking news covering technology and business.
- Spokesman-recorder.com: A weekly newspaper serving the Black community in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.
Ultimately, our goal with the Responsible News private marketplace is to enable investment in trusted publishers vetted by trained journalists—including thousands of quality local news sites and sites serving Black, Asian, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, and other minority communities. This helps advertisers to meet CSR and ESG goals by using their media spend as a force for good, supporting journalism that is essential for democracy.
This new offering with NewsGuard not only encourages brands to support credible news, but it also brings new demand to news sites that previously might not have attracted wary brand advertisers. Here at PubMatic, we bring solutions to market that enable brands to get closer to their audience while encouraging demand to go to the best quality news and content sites online.
Get in touch today to support quality journalism and a diverse open internet, while driving meaningful engagement with consumers.