Member Awards – January

We're pleased to announce the Member Award winners for January 2010!

Our monthly award program, which we announced last fall, spotlights members of our community who make outstanding contributions to our cause.

Award Winners
Here are our six award winners for January '10:

• Top Rated Reviewer - Jonathan Isaac Mitchell
Jonathan received high ratings from other members for his January reviews of stories from the Washington Post, New York Times and more. A newcomer to NewsTrust, Jonathan has already made great contributions to our community. Looking forward to working with you more, Jonathan!

• Most Thorough Reviewer - Kristin Gorski
Kristin, a NewsTrust stalwart, was our most thorough reviewer last month. As a long-time NewsTrust editor, host and co-author of our Teacher Guides, this recognition is long overdue. Kristin, we're immensely grateful for your outstanding participation and enthusiasm for our site.

• Most Active Reviewer - Randy Morrow
Randy reviewed 63 stories in January, bringing quality journalism from a wide range of publications to our attention. Thanks, Randy, much appreciated!

• Trusted Member of the Month - Emma Asomba
Emma, a policy analyst and researcher, joined NewsTrust last July and hosted our Pakistan News Hunt. He continues to bring fair criticisms and broad-minded perspectives on the day's news. Well done, Emma!

• Editor of the Month - Jim Lang
From time to time, we give special awards to NewsTrust community editors or hosts who make exceptional contributions to our cause. This month, we honor Jim for the fairness and objectivity he's consistently demonstrated in his reviews since he joined NewsTrust more than three years ago. Bravo, Jim!

• Teacher of the Month - Sally Lehrman
This month, we're happy to introduce a new award to honor educators who use NewsTrust in the classroom. Sally Lehrman is a journalism professor at Santa Clara University who, along with her students, has taken part in several NewsTrust projects in the past year, including our Bad Journalism News Hunt last October. This semester, she is asking her students to review more stories on NewsTrust, for her class on Race, Gender and Public Health in the News. We look forward to working with Sally and her students again this year, to help them learn the difference between good and bad journalism. 

As a small token of our appreciation, we're sending all award winners this NewsTrust mug:

Win a Member Award

If you are a regular NewsTrust reviewer, you too could win one of our monthly awards (see our October, November and December winners.

Here are some of the ways you can qualify for a member award and increase your own member level:

• Review often
Our top rated reviewers review and post stories regularly and thoroughly. Try to review at least a couple times per week and answer as many questions as you can. To review stories on our site, click 'Review' next to any story title; a good place to start is our home page.

• Focus on the journalism 
Here at NewsTrust, we try to rate stories based on the quality of the journalism, not whether we agree with the views presented in these stories. For tips on how to review on our site, check our review guide. 

• Fill your profile 
Take a moment to update your member profile, so other members can get to know you. The more you share about yourself, the higher your member level, and the more your ratings count. Be sure to add a picture if you can. 


How Member Awards Work

At the end of each month, NewsTrust staff editors tally the results for each award and announce the winners in a blog post and email newsletter. Winners can only win one award per year. If they qualify for two awards in the same month, they're only awarded one prize. 

NewsTrust staff editors and directors cannot not qualify for these awards. We will announce our February winners the week of March 1st.

We'd love to hear what you think of this community program, which we are extending for three months, through March 2010. Drop a comment here on the blog -- or email us directly at editors-at-newstrust-dot-net.

Support our Work
If you find our service useful, consider making a personal donation to NewsTrust. Your contribution will fund site improvements, new tools, community outreach, news literacy programs and much more. To see what we've accomplished together in 2009, check our Progress Report.   

 Please donate today, so we can continue to promote good journalism and bring you quality news and information. Our continued growth depends on you.  

-- by Derek Hawkins, Kaizar Campwala and Fabrice Florin

Top Stories on Haiti

Since last Tuesday, when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti left thousands dead and its capital city in ruins, our community has searched for the most reliable journalism about this tragic event and the humanitarian response that followed. You can see the results so far on our new Haiti topic page.

An abundance of news, analysis and opinion continues to emerge from Haiti, where news organizations around the world have sent correspondents to cover all aspects of the disaster. Observers have taken to commenting on how the devastation could spur a renewed search for solutions to Haiti's generations-old social and economic problems. Others have weighed in on the troubled relationship between Haiti and the United States, some pondering whether U.S. presence will amount to an occupation in coming months.

Top Stories
So far, we've posted 90 stories (60 news, 30 opinion) about the Haiti earthquake, 21 of which have received a NewsTrust rating. Most of these have come from mainstream sources with reporters on the ground in Port-au-Prince or elsewhere in the country.

Here are some of our top rated stories about Haiti this week:

News

• The Tragedy of Haiti - 60 Minutes, CBS News

• Breaking the supply logjam - Time

• 'America must treat carefully in Haiti' - Der Spiegel

• Ghosts of Port-au-Prince - Foreign Policy

• In earthquake-ravaged Haiti, daunting challenges hobble relief efforts - Washington Post

• Still no sign of aid in city center - The Times

• A race against time for aid in Haiti - NPR


Opinion

• Fault is not a sin - Slate

• The underlying tragedy - New York Times

• Suffering - New Yorker


Full listings

- Most trusted stories on Haiti

- Most recent stories on Haiti


Now more than a week since the earthquake struck, survivors still lack food, water and medical care. Logistical problems have overwhelmed relief efforts and many have died from injuries that would have been treatable otherwise. The Haitian government remains all but powerless as international troops arrive to maintain order and deliver aid. As the international community struggles to help speed up recovery, we'll continue to track quality journalism about Haiti. 

Can you help find the best journalism on this tragic event? Please review one of the stories on our Haiti topic page. You can also post new stories for review (we're looking for more independent coverage). For the latest coverage of this topic, check our Haiti smart feed, which lists recent stories recommended by trusted sources on Twitter and around the web.

Support Haiti
Help earthquake victims in Haiti -- consider a donation to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund or some of the great charitable organizations spearheading relief efforts. They need money, not material goods, to help deliver food, water, medical care and other necessities. Check out this list of trusted organizations and consider a donation now.

-- by Derek Hawkins, with Fabrice Florin

NewsTrust 2009 Report

As 2010 gets underway, we'd like to thank our community for supporting NewsTrust in 2009 -- and give you a quick report on what we accomplished together last year.

Our social news network grew steadily in 2009, with a range of new services and partnerships that helped over 1.5 million people get better informed about important public issues.

Here are some highlights of what we've achieved together in 2009. For more info, check our full 2009 Report (PDF).

New Services
In 2009, we launched a new version of our site, which is now much easier to use and more appealing visually, with a simpler layout and a user interface improved greatly by features like the NewsTrust Toolbar. Some of the many new services we also released in 2010 include: News Comparisons and Smart Feeds, as well as community tools like Facebook Connect, Email Notifications and Comments.

Together, we generated over 27,700 story reviews this year, covering a wide range of public issues from the economic crisis to health care reform and the war in Afghanistan. For an overview of the best journalism we found together, check our Best of 2009 page and our Top Sources of 2009.

New Partners
Last year, we partnered with many high-profile news organizations such as the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Link TV, PBS and PolitiFact, engaging their communities in regular news hunts for good journalism on important public issues. These collaborations have helped us promote our service and broaden our community -- and we're discussing more partnerships with other major new providers later this year.

In 2009, we also helped hundreds of students become more discerning news consumers, through our educational outreach in journalism schools at Santa-Clara University, Stanford, Stony Brook and the University of Nevada. We've developed a range of News Literacy and Teacher Guides to support these educational applications of our service in other schools across the nation.

Growing Community
In 2009, we served over 1.5 million visitors, nearly doubling our membership to 15,700 registered members and providing high-quality feeds of news and information to our community, through our website, daily emails, widgets, RSS, Facebook and Twitter. 

We also started monthly Member Awards last year -- and also saw an increase in 'trusted members,' with 383 reviewers demonstrating high levels of activity, expertise, ratings and transparency, earning them a member level of 3 or more.

New Business
We’re very grateful for the generous grants from the MacArthur Foundation and Ashoka, as well as private donations from our community, which have allowed us to keep growing in 2009 (see our full 2009 Report for more info). Many thanks as well to all NewsTrust members who donated during our year-end fundraising drive: you collectively contributed $5,980 in 2009 -- with another $2,675 received in January alone. We really appreciate your generosity and encourage you to keep giving when you can in 2010! (see below)

We also welcomed two new members on our board of directors: long-time advisers Howard Rheingold and David Cohn. Welcome aboard! Your commitment to our cause, combined with your expertise in journalism, new media and education will be invaluable on our board. We would also like to thank departing board member Terry Gamble, whose term expired this year, for her many generous contributions to NewsTrust over the years.

Due to the economic recession, this has been a tough year for fundraising, particularly in the field of journalism, which is facing an unprecedented crisis of its own. To sustain our operations in coming years, we are exploring a range of options such as raising funds from new and existing backers and developing strategic partnerships with compatible organizations. We will keep you posted on our progress towards these goals, and appreciate any support you can provide in the meantime.

Support our Work
NewsTrust isn't a commercial website. It's a nonprofit community service, which is created and funded by people like you. If you find our service useful, consider making a donation to NewsTrust. Your contribution will fund site improvements, new tools, community outreach, news literacy programs and much more.

If you haven't already, please donate today, so we can continue to promote good journalism and bring you quality news and information in 2010. Our continued growth depends on you.

Overall, 2009 has been a great year for NewsTrust. We've accomplished a lot together, and we've been amazed to see thousands of volunteers join our cause to promote good journalism. We're truly grateful for your inspiring support. It's pioneers like you that made this project possible -- and we thank you for your invaluable contributions.

We look forward to our next steps together in 2010!

-- Fabrice Florin and the NewsTrust Team

Member Awards - December '09

We're pleased to announce the Member Award winners for December 2009!

Our monthly award program, which we announced in September, spotlights members of our community who make outstanding contributions to our cause (see our original blog post).

Award Winners
Here are our six award winners for December '09:

• Top Rated Reviewer - Fred Gatlin
Fred received high ratings from other members for his December reviews of stories from the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and more. He's also earned a well-deserved 4.4. member level for his overall contributions to NewsTrust. Fred, thanks your great work over the years!

• Most Thorough Reviewer - George Watson
George, an editor at Wikinews and Wikipedia, regularly answered 20 questions or more in his reviews, and wrote thoughtful notes and comments for each of his reviews. George is also editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper in Grimsby, United Kingdom. Welcome aboard, George! 

• Most Active Reviewer - Glenn LaBauve
Glenn wrote 41 story reviews in December, making him our most active reviewer that month (excluding previous winners). Glenn is from Texas, and brings a wealth of experience to his reviews, as a former war planner, newspaper production manager and accountant. Well done, Glenn!

• Top Rated Post - Subramanya Sastry 
"Climategate" from FactCheck.org received a 4.4 rating from 11 reviews and was featured in our "Best of 2009" stories list. It was posted by web engineer Subbu Sastry, outside the scope of his duties for NewsTrust. Good call, Subbu!

• Trusted Member of the Month - Andre Heinemann
Andre, a medical doctor from Florida, has brought his valuable insights to more than a dozen stories since he joined NewsTrust last month -- and the NewsTrust community has welcomed him with high marks for his well-worded reviews. Thanks, Andre -- and welcome to NewsTrust!

• Editor of the Month - Walter Cox
From time to time, we give special awards to NewsTrust community editors or hosts who make exceptional contributions to our cause. Our first award in this category goes to Walter Cox from California, for his extensive participation in our Climate Change News Hunt, taking great care to insure that views from climate change skeptics were fairly represented. Thanks, Walter -- we really appreciate the thoroughness of your work and your commitment to NewsTrust!

As a small token of our appreciation, we're sending all award winners this NewsTrust mug:

Win a Member Award

If you are a regular NewsTrust reviewer, you too could win one of our monthly awards (see our October and November winners).

Here are some of the ways you can qualify for a member award and increase your own member level:

• Review often
Our top rated reviewers review and post stories regularly and thoroughly. Try to review at least a couple times per week and answer as many questions as you can. To review stories on our site, click 'Review' next to any story title; a good place to start is our home page.

• Focus on the journalism 
Here at NewsTrust, we try to rate stories based on the quality of the journalism, not whether we agree with the views presented in these stories. For tips on how to review on our site, check our review guide. 

• Fill your profile 
Take a moment to update your member profile, so other members can get to know you. The more you share about yourself, the higher your member level, and the more your ratings count. Be sure to add a picture if you can. 


How Member Awards Work

At the end of each month, NewsTrust staff editors tally the results for each award and announce the winners in a blog post and email newsletter. Winners can only win one award per year. If they qualify for two awards in the same month, they're only awarded one prize. 

NewsTrust staff editors and directors cannot not qualify for these awards. We will announce our January winners the week of February 1st.

We'd love to hear what you think of this community program, which we are extending for three months, through March 2010. Drop a comment here on the blog -- or email us directly at editors-at-newstrust-dot-net.

Support our Work
If you find our service useful, consider making a personal donation to NewsTrust. Your contribution will fund site improvements, new tools, community outreach, news literacy programs and much more. To see what we've accomplished together in 2009, check our Progress Report.   

 Please donate today, so we can continue to promote good journalism and bring you quality news and information. Our continued growth depends on you.  

-- by Derek Hawkins, Kaizar Campwala and Fabrice Florin

Best Journalism of 2009 on NewsTrust

To wrap up a tumultuous year, here are some of our Top 20 Stories of 2009 (see list below).

As we did last year, our top news reports and opinions were selected by our editors based on ratings from the NewsTrust community -- to represent the broad range of events and news sources that covered them.

The Year in Review
It was a difficult year to summarize in one sweep, to be sure. The year began with the outbreak of war in Gaza, alongside the inauguration of a new U.S. president. In February, a new U.S. Congress authorized hundreds of billions of dollars into to be poured into the economy to help stimulate recovery from the previous fall's financial crisis. Months later, the economy showed signs of growth, but unemployment remained at record highs. 

The war in Afghanistan intensified, as did the debate over a new strategy. President Obama deployed thousands of troops and trainers in the spring, and vowed later in the year to send many more. Conflict spilled into neighboring Pakistan, amid ongoing conflict between Pakistani and Taliban forces. Hamid Karzai secured a second term as president in an election many world leaders and international bodies said was marred by fraud.

In June, another corrupt presidential election, this one in Iran, gave way to large-scale protests against Iran's system of government. The demonstrations, organized with the help of Twitter and other social networking tools, resulted in violent confrontation between protestors and government forces, and captured the attention of media around the world.

Debate over the Democratic Party's ambitious plans for health care reform erupted over the summer, with accusations of euthanasia, socialism and "death panels" appearing on the front pages of major newspapers. Months of debate in Congress have brought an overhaul of the nation's health care system close to a vote, though much later than President Obama had intended.

A far cry from 2008, in which the presidential election (and later the financial crisis) dominated the news cycle, the news stories and opinions that define 2009 cover a diversity of topics and complex issues. Where does the massacre at Fort Hood fit into this picture? The failed climate negotiations at Copenhagen? The confirmation of Sonya Sotomayor? Debate over torture?

Best Stories of 2009
To spotlight a wide range of stories and sources, NewsTrust staff editors compiled a list of NewsTrust's top rated news and opinion from 2009. To qualify, each story had to have at least 10 reviews, with an overall rating of 4.0 or higher, as well 5 or more reviews with notes from trusted members. No publication could win twice in this Top 20 list.

Here they are, NewsTrust's Best Stories of 2009:

Top 5 News Stories - Mainstream

• Familiar Players in Health Bill Lobbying - Washington Post (Reviews)
• In Netherlands, insurers compete over quality of care - PBS NewsHour (Reviews)
• Green Giant - New Yorker (Reviews)
• Obama to Shut Guantanamo Site and C.I.A. Prisons - New York Times (Reviews)
• The most dangerous place in the world - Foreign Policy (Reviews)

Top 5 News Stories - Independent

• "Climategate" - FactCheck (Reviews)
• God, the Army, and PTSD - Boston Review (Reviews)
• Gaza Media War - Link TV / Global Pulse (Reviews)
• The Homemakers - Miller-McCune (Reviews)
• The U.S. Economic stimulus plan - Council on Foreign Relations (Reviews)

Top 5 Opinions - Mainstream

• Keeping Iran Honest - Guardian (Reviews)
• Fear was no excuse to condone torture - Miami Herald (Reviews)
• Why should I respect these oppressive religions - The Independent (Reviews)
• The big takeover - Rolling Stone (Reviews)
• Jon Stewart rips into CNBC - Daily Show (Reviews)

Top 5 Opinions - Independent

• Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable - Clay Shirky (Reviews)
• Why the Critics of a Public Option for Health Care Are Wrong - Robert Reich (Reviews)
• All of Them Must Go - The Nation (Reviews)
• The 13 people who made torture possible - Salon (Reviews)
• Yoo for the Defense - Harper's (Reviews)

For more details on our final selections, check our Best of 2009 topic page -- or these full listing pages: Best of 2009: News, and Best of 2009: Opinions. See also: our Top Sources of 2009.

We hope you enjoy these stories as much as we did selecting them for you.

Happy New Year!

-- by Derek Hawkins, with Fabrice Florin and Kaizar Campwala

Top Sources of 2009

Where did the NewsTrust community get its most reliable coverage in 2009?

To find out, we've created a special page featuring our Top Sources of 2009!

Our most trusted sources are listed on that page, based on the thousands of story reviews our members contributed throughout the year. We highlighted the news and opinion sources that have most consistently earned our trust in a range of categories: overall, by content type,  by media type, and by topic. Mainstream and Independent sources are listed separately in each category, to ensure more diversity in our listings.

The top sources in each category have earned a well-deserved stamp of approval from the NewsTrust community for their work in 2009. We recommend them highly and are very grateful for all that they do to keep citizens informed through quality journalism.

Top Sources - Overall
This main category features sources which provided the best overall coverage in 2009, with the most reviews and the highest ratings. To qualify in this category, mainstream sources needed to have 100 rated stories or more, independent sources 50 or more.

For mainstream, four major U.S. newspapers were the clear leaders, while online sources offered the top independent coverage:

Top Mainstream Sources
New York Times
Washington Post
Los Angeles Times
Wall Street Journal

Top Independent Sources
Salon
Alternet
Huffington Post

More Top Sources
To reward more trusted sources, we created additional categories for News and Opinion. Sources featured in the Overall category were excluded from these listings, to ensure diversity in our listings. The New Yorker and FactCheck led our lists for their outstanding news coverage and analysis, while The Guardian and TruthOut had the most reviews and the highest ratings in the opinion category.

Top Sources by Medium
In our second group, we looked at top sources by medium: newspapers, magazines, online sites, blogs, TV, radio and wire services. For each category, we looked at top rated and most reviewed sources to find out which sources were most trusted by our community. Most of our top sources from the Overall group were featured prominently here as well; but our community also surfaced many lesser-known sources: Asia Times, Link TV, Miller-McCune, Informed Comment, Radio Free Europe and more.

Editors Picks by Topic
NewsTrust editors also selected top sources that provided the best coverage by topic -- with separate categories for World, U.S., Politics, Business and Sci/Tech subject areas -- as well as some of 2009's hottest topics: Afghanistan, Climate Change, Health Care, Obama Administration, U.S. Congress and U.S. Economy. For these topic listings, we selected two top sources, after a thorough review of our community's collective ratings: one mainstream and one independent source.

Methodology
The top sources above were selected based on their average story ratings for each category in the last year, from Dec. 16 2008 to Dec. 15, 2009. To qualify for selection, all top sources required a minimum source rating of 3.0 overall. Selected stories generally had a source rating of 3.5 or more, and many had source ratings of 4.0 or more in their featured category. Lastly, our top sources required a minimum number of rated stories to be selected. Required minimums varied for each category, to spotlight the most reviewed sources in top categories, and to insure diversity in the smaller categories. For a full description of our methodology, click here.

Political Views
NewsTrust welcomes a wide range of political viewpoints on our site, but so far we have attracted more members from the left than the right - despite our best efforts to attract participants and partners from the other side of the political spectrum. As a result, many of our top sources tend to reflect this leftward tilt, particularly in the opinion category. Over time, we hope to attract more reviewers from the right and center, to help restore the balance and present more diverse political views on NewsTrust. If you know conservatives, libertarians or moderates that would be interested in our mission, please invite them to review actively on our site, where we will do our best to make them feel welcome. In coming years, we hope that NewsTrust can bring people with different viewpoints closer together and that we can all learn from each other, across party lines.

Check our Site
Did your favorite sources make our list? Who else had the best world coverage? The best opinions? To find out more, check out the full listings of this year's winners visit our Top Sources of 2009 page. Note that we also list our top sources on our most popular topic pages (e.g. Environment). You can find these listings in the right sidebar of many of our topic pages.

And for a running list of our top sources at any time of year, visit our Trusted Sources page.


Congratulations to all our top sources this year, for their outstanding coverage of important public issues - and for helping all of us make more informed decisions as citizens!

-- by Derek Hawkins, Kaizar Campwala, Fabrice Florin, David Fox, Subbu Sastry and the NewsTrust Team

Top Stories on Climate Change

 As world leaders convened last week in Copenhagen for the U.N. Climate Change Conference, NewsTrust teamed up with Link TV to focus on the issues behind the talks -- from climate change science to economic development. 

Our Climate Change News Hunt, which ran from Dec. 3 to 13, covered these issues and the first week of the conference, where international delegates worked to negotiate an international treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol in 2012. 

Rather than trying to stay ahead of breaking news about the talks, we looked at a wide range of topics that help put the Copenhagen conference in context.

Top Stories
During this ten-day News Hunt, we posted 144 stories in total, 34 of which received a NewsTrust rating. Here are some of our top rated stories:

News
• "ClimateGate" - FactCheck.org
• Africa: Cash for Climate Change? - Link TV
• Dutch approach to climate change: Adapt - Washington Post
• On climate, lost decade now leads to final chance, 'last' decade, scientists say - Associated Press
• Senate Poses Obstacles to Obama’s Climate Pledge - New York Times
• Crisis Guide: Climate Change - Council on Foreign Relations (Multimedia)

Opinion
• An Affordable Truth - New York Times
• Environmentalist says 'going green' is a waste of time - National Public Radio (NPR)
• Naked Copenhagen - Wall Street Journal
• Copenhagen: What would success look like? - Mother Jones
• The climate denial industry is out to dupe the public. And it's working - The Guardian
• The Story of Cap and Trade - Story of Stuff (Multimedia)

Copenhagen: Building a Consensus
As talks began in Copenhagen, we started the News Hunt by reviewing early analysis of the conference. Mother Jones examined what success in Copenhagen would entail, calling a binding treaty impossible but outlining likely positive outcomes. The Economist was less optimistic, saying the most the world can hope for is a framework for a future deal. The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported on the Netherlands' efforts to prepare for inevitable climate change.

Individual Action
What can individuals do to address climate change? While Scientific American debated investing in solar power and an Independent columnist said change had to be society-wide, a longtime environmentalist told NPR individual attempts to live a carbon-friendly lifestyle are inconsequential without top-down change. All three were highly rated by our community.

Other Climate Change Themes
Our partners at Link TV posted one of our top stories, "Africa: Cash for climate change?", which rounded up coverage of Africa's calls for reparations from the industrialized world's contributions to climate change. The Associated Press ran a narrative of the scientific community's warnings about global warming. And the Council on Foreign Relations offered its own multimedia climate change "Crisis Guide."

Climate Science vs. Skepticism
The debate over whether human activity causes climate change was one the most discussed issues in the stories we reviewed. Two weeks before the conference, hackers circulated several thousand emails stolen from a prominent climate research lab, some of which included exchanges about withholding information and adjusting measurements. Climate change skeptics seized upon the emails as "smoking guns," proof that scientists have fabricated global warming data and overstated the impact of human involvement in temperature changes.

The controversy, now known as "climategate," brought us some of our best -- and worst -- stories of this News Hunt.

"They [the emails] don't provide proof that human-caused climate change is a lie or a swindle," the Washington Post reported, continuing:

"But they do raise hard questions. In an effort to control what the public hears, did prominent scientists who link climate change to human behavior try to squelch a back-and-forth that is central to the scientific method? Is the science of global warming messier than they have admitted?"

The New York Times wrote that the emails had ushered in a "revival of skepticism" on the eve of the conference:

"as representatives of about 200 nations converge in Copenhagen on Monday to begin talks on a new international climate accord, they do so against a background of renewed attacks on the basic science of climate change."

The Times on the same day wrote in an editorial that although the emails were a "windfall" for skeptics, they do not undermine the science itself.

Later in the week, FactCheck ran an in-depth analysis of "climategate." Our top rated story for this News Hunt, FactCheck called skeptics' claims "far wide of the mark":

"The e-mails (which have been made available by an unidentified individual here) do show a few scientists talking frankly among themselves — sometimes being rude, dismissive, insular, or even behaving like jerks. Whether they show anything beyond that is still in doubt... many of the e-mails that are being held up as 'smoking guns' have been misrepresented by global-warming skeptics eager to find evidence of a conspiracy. And even if they showed what the critics claim, there remains ample evidence that the earth is getting warmer."

Views from skeptics were represented in our News Hunt, but were generally not well received by our community. Other views from the right fared better, such as this opinion from the Wall Street Journal, which agreed that the earth is warming, but opposed mandatory carbon emissions cuts from western nations:

"An expensive effort to reduce Western emissions sets a worthless example. Only emissions cuts that provide measurable economic benefit to the developing nations will be adopted by them. If the 80% U.S. emissions cut winds up hurting the U.S. economy, it guarantees China will never follow our example."

An op-ed by Thomas Friedman seemed to bridge the gap. He offered a potential solution:

"If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull's-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent."

For a full listing of the stories we reviewed for this News Hunt, check our Climate Change News Hunt listings. And for more recent stories on this topic, check our Climate Change topic page.

Thanks to our Partners at Link TV
We'd like to give a big thanks to our partners at Link TV for joining us in this News Hunt. Our kudos go to Kim Spencer, David Michaelis, Evelyn Messinger, Heidi Blobaum, Hannah Eaves, Erin Coker and the rest of the stellar team at Link TV. It's been a true pleasure to partner with you again. 

-- by Derek Hawkins, with Fabrice Florin and Kaizar Campwala

Photo: Getty/NYT

NewsTrust Teacher Guides

Today it gives us great pleasure to announce an important development in our educational outreach: the NewsTrust Teacher Guides.

Our new teacher guides are designed to help educators teach their students how to recognize good journalism, by bringing NewsTrust review tools into the classroom. They extend our current offering of News Literacy Guides for the general public.

Today's students have unprecedented access to worlds of knowledge other generations could hardly have imagined. To effectively use this knowledge and make well-informed decisions as citizens, they must first learn to be discerning news consumers.

But the critical skills and healthy skepticism necessary to recognize quality journalism do not develop overnight. To help educators instill these news literacy skills in their students, our teacher guides include interactive lesson plans that will show students how to identify good and bad journalism -- and determine if they can trust the news they watch, hear and read everyday.

Our New Guides
We offer both printed guides for classrooms without Internet access -- and Internet guides for classrooms with Internet access -- as well as a growing list of additional resources for follow-up activities.

Printed Guides

• News (No Internet - PDF) – This guide will help you teach students how to identify journalistic flaws in a news report. Download it here.
• Opinion (No Internet - PDF) – This guide will help you teach students how to identify misinformation in an opinion piece. Download it here.

Internet Guides

• News (Internet) – This guide will help you teach students to identify journalistic flaws in news reports. View it here.
• Opinion (Internet) – This guide will help you teach students to identify misinformation in opinion pieces.  View it here.

Additional Resources

• More Stories – This page lists more sample news reports and opinions which you may substitute for the sample stories in the guides above, or use in follow-up assignments. View it here.
• More Activities – This page offers opportunities for students to take what they've learned by reviewing stories on NewsTrust and apply that knowledge in other fields. View it here.
• Educational Resources – This page offers an extensive list of educational resources, with more information and ideas about teaching news literacy and core principles of journalism. View it here.

Thanks to our Team
These teacher and student guides were written by Fabrice Florin and Kristin Gorski, a NewsTrust editor and former English and history teacher – with the help of Derek Hawkins, Kaizar Campwala, David Fox and other NewsTrust team members. 

Our teacher and student guides support our news literacy mission, and are inspired by these NewsTrust consumer guides: Think Like a Journalist, by Iowa State University professor Michael Bugeja, and Crap Detection 101, by Stanford professor Howard Rheingold. We would also like to thank other members of our news literacy committee who consulted on this project: John McManus, Frank Baker and Jim Lang. 

Lastly, we are very grateful to our many educational partners, who helped us refine this curriculum by bringing NewsTrust into their classrooms over the past couple years. They include: Howard Rheingold, Ann Grimes and Fred Turner at Stanford University; Donica Mensing, David Rye and Jerry Ceppos at the University of Nevada, Dan Gillmor and Christopher Callahan at Arizona State University; Dan Kennedy at Northeastern; Howie Schneider and Jim Klurfeld at Stony Brook University, and Sally Lehrman at Santa-Clara University, to name but a few. We look forward to many more productive collaborations with them and other educators.

If you have any questions or comments, or would like to share your feedback about our teacher guides, please contact us at schools@newstrust.net.

NewsTrust in the Classroom
In the past few years, educators around the country have used NewsTrust's review tools to teach their students how to recognize good and bad journalism. In a recent assignment, Professor Sally Lehrman asked her journalism students at Santa Clara University to spend an entire quarter using NewsTrust to monitor a traditional news site, an ethnic or community news site and a blog. Each week, students posted stories from their chosen sources and reviewed them on NewsTrust, along with stories posted by other members. At the end of the quarter, students wrote reflections based on their experience, which NewsTrust editors have just had the pleasure of reading.

We'd like to thank all the students who participated in this interesting experiment (including Morgan Doherty, Brandon Jones, Ada Onuegbe and Tom Schreier, who all wrote thoughtful reflections on their experience). We would also like to highlight one student in particular, Krista Kelley, for writing insightful reviews and bringing a couple new sources to our attention. Krista reviewed stories from the New York Times, Pam's House Blend and Curve Magazine (the last two publications cover issues in the LGBTQ community and had not yet been featured in our database). 

She had this to say in her reflection:

This assignment has informed me about different sites that give news reports for all communities. I can now recognize what makes journalism good or bad from the practice I have had reviewing articles on NewsTrust. I would recommend people to go to the NewsTrust site because of all the options on what outlet and type of news they may be looking for.

Special thanks to Krista and her fellow students for their outstanding participation in this experiment -- and to their teacher Sally Lehrman for developing this great new educational application of NewsTrust with her class!

We invite other educators to try their own experiments as well, starting with our NewsTrust Teacher Guides -- and adapting them to fit your needs. Please let us know how we can support you and develop new activities to help more students get the news literacy skills they need in the digital age. 

-- by Derek Hawkins, with Kaizar Campwala and Fabrice Florin

(Photo: Journalism students at Northeastern University review a news story on NewsTrust. Teachers: Dan Kennedy, Mike LaBonte)

Climate Change with Link TV

UPDATED (see below)

This week, we're teaming up with our partners at Link TV for a ten-day News Hunt to find quality journalism about climate change.

This Climate Change News Hunt is centered around the UN Climate Change Conference, which begins this Monday in in Copenhagen. World leaders will convene in the Denmark capital for over a week to negotiate an international treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol in 2012. During that time, they will try to set global emission standards -- as well as discuss sustainable growth, adaptation funding to developing countries, and other topics related to global warming.

How are the news media covering the many issues related to climate change? What do we know about the science of climate change? what can we learn from skeptics? What can we expect from the talks? Is a globally enforceable deal possible? How will industrialized nations and developing nations reconcile their interests? What will happen if negotiations collapse? What can we do individually to address these issues?

News Hunt Calendar
To help answer these questions and more, we're breaking down our News Hunt into daily themes. Here's what we'll be featuring day by day:

• Friday 12/4 - Developing World: Africa
• Saturday 12/5 - ClimateGate
• Sunday 12/6 - Global Warming: Key Issues
• Monday 12/7 - Copenhagen: Building a Consensus
• Tuesday 12/8 - Climate Change Science: What do we know?
• Wednesday 12/9 - Individual Action: What can you do?
• Thursday 12/10 - Developing World: China and India
• Friday 12/11 - Climate Change Skeptics
• Saturday - Bad Journalism on Climate Change
• Sunday - Final Analysis

Join the News Hunt
Join our Climate Change News Hunt and help get the facts about this important and controversial issue. You can start today by reviewing this featured story from our partners at Link TV's Global Pulse:

"Africa: Cash for Climate Change?"

Also be sure to check our Climate Change topic page for the latest updates.

You can post a story there, or share your thoughts about climate change in our new comments section.

Lastly, check our partner LinkTV's Climate Change page for more information on this topic -- and links to actions you can take as an individual to address this global issue.

UPDATED: News Comparisons
Below are the news comparisons we've featured so far in this News Hunt. Help us rate them by adding your review:

Copenhagen: Building a Consensus

• Dutch approach to climate change: Adapt - Washington Post
• Searching for harmony - Economist
• What would success look like? - Mother Jones

Climate Change Science

• On climate, lost decade now leads to final chance, 'last' decade, scientists say - Associated Press
• Fighting to keep above the waves - Aljazeera
• This decade is warmest on record, 2009 ranks fifth - Bloomberg

Individual Action

• Should you get solar now or wait? - Scientific American
• Environmentalist says 'going green' is a waste of time - NPR
• What on Earth? The concerned citizen's guide to global warming - Independent

China and India

• Setting the pace on India's climate change - Riding the Elephant
• In Copenhagen, U.S. pushes for emissions cuts from China, developing nations - Washington Post
• India's Copenhagen conundrum - World Politics Review

Climate Change Skeptics

• Climate of uncertainty heats up - Wall Street Journal
• Why the historical warming numbers matter - Climate-Skeptic
• Putting 'Climategate' in perspective - New York Times

Who Runs Climate Change?
We recently completed a week-long News Hunt on environmental lobbying, in partnership with the Washington Post's WhoRunsGov. From November 16 through 23 we asked: Who runs climate change? Our top stories covered the environmental, energy and business lobbies, and a range of issues related to climate change legislation. Check out the results of this unique partnership on the NewsTrust Blog.

Photo: NTV/LinkTV

Member Award Winners - November

We're pleased to announce the Member Award winners for the month of November!

Our monthly award program, which we announced in September, highlights members of our community who make outstanding contributions to our cause (see our original blog post).


Award Winners
Here are our six award winners for November: 

• Top Rated Reviewer - Patricia L'Herrou
Patricia earned high ratings from other members on her reviews of stories from Boston Review, American Prospect and more.

• Most Thorough Reviewer - Samuel W. Velsor IV
Samuel regularly answered 513 questions over more than 40 story reviews last month.

• Most Active Reviewer - Tanya J. Maurer
With 87 story reviews, Tanya was our most active reviewer by a long shot.

• Top Rated Post - Chris Rocco, "Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan"
The story Chris posted, from the Nation, received a 4.5 from six NewsTrust reviewers.

• Most Reviewed Post - Vincent Caminiti, "The Phantom Menace"
Vincent's post, a New York Times op-ed by Paul Krugman, garnered seven reviews and an overall rating of 4.4.

• Trusted Member of the Month - Christine Ahlstrom
Christine is a journalism student at Santa Clara University. Her regular participation on the site since she signed up in September and her thoughtful story reviews made her stand out for us this month -- plus, she's one of the youngest active reviewers in our community.

As a small token of our appreciation, we're sending all award winners this NewsTrust mug:



Win a Member Award 

If you are a regular NewsTrust reviewer, you too could win one of our monthly awards (see last month's winners). Here are some of the ways you can qualify for a member award and increase your own member level:

• Review often
Our top rated reviewers review and post stories regularly and thoroughly. Try to review at least a couple times per week and answer as many questions as you can. To review stories on our site, click 'Review' next to any story title; a good place to start is our home page.

• Focus on the journalism 
Here at NewsTrust, we try to rate stories based on the quality of the journalism, not whether we agree with the views presented in these stories. For tips on how to review on our site, check our review guide. 

• Fill your profile 
Take a moment to update your member profile, so other members can get to know you. The more you share about yourself, the higher your member level, and the more your ratings count. Be sure to add a picture if you can. 


How Member Awards Work

At the end of each month, NewsTrust editors tally the results for each award and announce the winners in a blog post and email newsletter. Winners can only win one award per year. If they qualify for two awards in the same month, they're awarded the "higher" prize. 

NewsTrust staff editors and directors cannot not qualify for these awards. Member awards will be given again in three weeks, for reviews posted up to December 20. We will announce our December winners the week of December 21st.

We'd love to hear what you think of this new community program. Drop a comment here on the blog -- or email us directly at editors-at-newstrust-dot-net.

-- by Derek Hawkins, Kaizar Campwala and Fabrice Florin

UPDATED 1/06/2010