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Don’t trust the news? Check out NewsTrust

by Staff Writer

Came across an interesting new site today called NewsTrust. There’s an article at Alternet by one of the founders explaining it:

Don’t Trust the News?
By Rory O’Connor, AlterNet. Posted November 27, 2006

O’Connor writes:
How can you be sure that the news you see and hear is true? Are there any journals and journalists that you can really trust and rely on? If so, how can you find them amidst the clangor and the clutter?

…So what’s a citizen to do? In recent years, a combination of factors — including but not limited to the consolidation of mainstream media by huge multinational entertainment conglomerates, the concomitant spread of cable television’s highly partisan and factually challenged opinions-as-news formats, the digital information revolution and its explosion of online media outlets, and the Defense Department’s Rumsfeldian reliance on “Information Dominance” — have combined to create a serious long-term problem for our democracy. To put it bluntly, many of us no longer feel we can trust the news media to deliver the information we need to function as fully informed democrats.

Enter NewsTrust, an online social news network aimed at helping people identify quality journalism — or “news you can trust.” This free, not-for-profit service offers the most trusted news of the day, as selected by community members using state-of-the-art media literacy tools. By filtering content available from online sources, establishing common metrics for evaluation, and accessing the “wisdom of the crowds” through social networking, the free, not-for-profit NewsTrust service offers one possible solution to the “News You Can Trust” conundrum. The website, where members rate the news online based on commonly accepted standards of journalistic quality, features news and analysis from hundreds of mainstream and independent news sources. This non-partisan community effort tracks news media worldwide and helps citizens make informed decisions about democracy across party lines.

This sounds like a great and long overdue idea. Time will tell if it flies, but the concept is commendable.


Posted in General on November 30th, 2006

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