An in-depth investigation into Ad Fontes Media, a “media literacy” organization, found that the for-profit company is making money by actively encouraging Big Tech platforms, advertisers, and educators to deplatform, boycott, and exclude conservative commentators and media organizations, including The Federalist.
“Masquerading as a ‘media literacy’ organization, Ad Fontes Media is the left’s newest weapon to erase conservative speech while bolstering legacy media,” wrote the investigators at Media Research Center (MRC) Free Speech America.
Ad Fontes, founded in 2018, claims to be impartial. According to its website, it is continuously updating its “Media Bias Chart,” which includes over 3,000 media sources graded on their own “bias” and “reliability” metrics. The organization insists it is objective because its evaluations stem from the consensus of anonymous analysts who are supposedly politically diverse. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Ad Fontes analysts evaluate individual news articles and other forms of media content in groups of three. Even though the three analysts are supposed to include one individual on the left, one on the right, and another in the center, Ad Fontes’ founder and CEO Vanessa Otero brags that “99% of the time,” the three allegedly diverse analysts arrive at a single score.
Promoting False, Leftist Narratives
Purportedly “Impartial” Ad Fontes promotes indisputably false left-wing narratives, such as the claim that the highly credible Wuhan lab leak theory is a “baseless” and “fringe theory.” Indeed, Ad Fontes gave the infamous 2020 Washington Post article “debunk[ing]” the lab leak theory its highest reliability rating.
