A Look Back at Bush Stories

On Monday we took a collective look at journalism surrounding the Bush Administration and together we found some great content.

In the aftermath of Bush's last State of the Union address, the Environmental News Service wrote an article examining the integrity of the presidents remarks about the environment, pointing out what has historically been a bad e-record. It was our highest rated article and received some interesting comments.

Terry Baiko got right to the heart of it:

"Preaching to the choir. As entertaining as a Bush-bash always is, this presents no window onto how the 'bad guys' justify this terrible act. And without that data, there is no target to shoot at."

While the Environmental News Service article was incredibly informative, it failed to report on the other side of the story. Perhaps because his administration has been so divisive, that is a common failing in journalism about Bush - there is often a lack of reporting on both sides of a story.

Two more highly rated stories were the American Prospects' "The Economic State of the Union," and Slate's "The Man Who Knew Too Little."

As you might guess from the title of the second piece, it was not kind to Bush. The American Prospect's article didn't let Bush off the hook either:

"In last night's State of the Union, Bush danced around the very real economic concerns faced by Americans. Of course, this is nothing new.

The important thing, however, is that our reviewers were looking for more than just mere opinion from the reporters. They praised the authors for providing information (and lots of it) but they also picked up on potential bias and were quick to point out how that weakened the story. That's a complaint that comes from both sides of the political spectrum.

Still - these two stories were both towards the higher end of our ratings, and rightfully so. Not only are articles about Bush consistently getting rated with five stars in the category of "importance," but these specific articles were informative and provided evidence to back up their statements. That's good journalism and we found it together.

Don't forget about our current news hunt which is about the Republican front runner Senator John McCain.

Featured Topic - January 30th 2008 - John McCain

Our featured topic today is John McCain. The dust has settled in Florida and McCain has emerged the victor. What is the coverage surrounding this win? Is the media proclaiming McCain the winner already? Are they portraying him in a fair and honest manner? Help us find and review good journalism about McCain.

Super Tuesday is just around the corner and as some candidates start to drop out, the others aren't going to hold back any punches in the coming week. It's important that when we review any of the 90 stories in the McCain section we keep a strong eye out for quality content that profiles a person that has been influential in American politics and could potentially be elected our commander and chief.

The New York Times, for example, takes an in depth look at the candidate in an article titled "McCain’s Fiscal Mantra Becomes Less Is More" (review it here).

The community at "Social Vote," a Web 2.0 social political news site, gave the article 58 votes, which is towards the higher end of their spectrum and while that does help to show the relative importance of the story, reviewing this same piece on NewsTrust one can really dive into the strengths and weaknesses of the journalism. So far our reviewers have given it low ratings in balance, context and fairness. Others around the web seem to also think this piece lacked overall insight.

What do you think?

Help us find and review the best content on John McCain. Come back to the blog later to find out how we did in searching for content about the Bush Administration.

To take a look at what we found from our last featured topic, the Bush Administration, click here.

How to Participate in the NewsTrust Community

NewsTrust is not just a news review site, but also a social news site. True, we don’t have loads of contentious cross-talk, nor do we have loads of just general online comparing-notes type conversation, little blogs and messages all over the place for one another.

So, how can NewsTrust ("NT") be “social” without open conversation? How can members get to know others if they’re not yakking?

Overall, NewsTrust’s community is mostly interested in what members think about journalism. What you know more than who you know, so to say.

Still, you can help strengthen the NT community by letting us know something about you. Member profile pages allow you to tell us as little or as much about you as you’d like other members to know. Lots of members start out telling very little. And for some, this is a prudent decision—some simply need time to get more acquainted with the community before revealing too much about themselves.

A good way to get more acquainted with the NT community is to start reviewing stories! Once you submit your first review, your member role will change to Reviewer. The depth of your review depends on your preferences (or even mood of the day, for that matter.) When you click "Review It" to open our NT review form, you can see that there are a number of different sections. The first section lets you rate the story by answering questions about the story's journalistic quality and adding a comment, in order to create a basic review. For a short overview on how to rate a story, check our Quick Review Tips .

Further down the review form, you can open other sections that let you go deeper, tag the story, research it, and even add links to material that might add more perspective. The Reviewers FAQ details what all those different sections are about and how to use them.

By reviewing stories on our site, you are leaving a bread-crumb trail about your own worldview, which helps others find out more about you. Now, how might you get to know everyone who’s already here? When you go to a story reviews page (click 'See Reviews' anywhere on our site), you will see the names of other people who have reviewed that story. Click on their names, and check out who they are. You can even rate some of their reviews, based on how well they evaluate the journalistic quality of that story.

It’s completely up to you how far to delve into reviewing a story. Many members submit quick reviews for a variety of stories, only answering a few rating questions -- while submitting detailed reviews on stories that are of particular interest or that they know more about. For instance, I might give an in-depth review of a technology story, and a quick review of a political story, while other reviewers might really get into a political story or something on the economy.

How you review will also help you raise your member level. Member levels are average scores based on your activity, overall experience, transparency, ratings from other members and profile validation (determined by staff.) These levels are displayed on the right-side of every member profile—that’s what all those yellow dots are about. You can read more about member level on the Members’ FAQ

Like most community sites, what you can get out of NewsTrust depends on how much you want to put into it through your reviews, and how curious you are about our community. And if you’re content to lurk on the sidelines, you can do that too, by simply using NewsTrust as your starting point for finding quality news stories. Any way you choose to be part of our community is fine with us!

Featured Topic: January 28, 2008 - Bush Adminstration

Today's featured topic is the Bush Administration. In his final State of the Union address this evening, George W. Bush is looking to secure his legacy in the shadow of uncertainty about the war in Iraq and U.S. Economy. How well has the media covered this often controversial President? Help us find good journalism on this topic -- and review our recommended stories on the Bush Administration.

If you are too busy to live blog the State of the Union address, perhaps you can rate the way other people analyze and report it. Bush's administration will soon be history. That is inevitable. What is unknown, however, is the how history will view him.

This speech will be scrutinized over and over again through the media in the next few days. It goes without saying that Bush's presidency has been partisan and polarizing. What is up for grabs, however, is if he will be viewed and portrayed positively or negatively by generations to come. That will be decided by the quality works of journalism that are produced on our about him.

It's hard to find somebody without an opinion about how Bush has performed these past eight years. Entire hubs of the blogosphere have been built around various camps that support or attack his policies.

Our goal in rating content about president Bush isn't to take a side, but to examine the laurels and darts that others deserve in how they have covered his administration. Regardless of our politics, we want honest and unbiased coverage about our president. That includes keeping a reporters opinion outside of the article, getting both sides of the story and other qualities which Rory O'Connor is going to expound on in this blog over time.

For now, let's dive into content surrounding president Bush. If we are able to find the best journalism on or about him, we will have a better sense of what his place in history will really be.

A Look Back at Global Economy Stories

It was certainly a good week to feature stories on the global economy.  There were more top rated stories and others still left in the "to be reviewed" que to  really talk about. But that's a good thing. As fears of a global recession are being echoed around, we certainly want the journalism on the topic to be solid if not superb. By filtering the wheat from the chaffe, NewsTrust is doing a public service for the larger world wide web.

We finished the week off with four stories rated 4.0 or above (check the Top Rated category here).

The most interesting to me, and one that has been top rated all week is "Next Stop Asia?" from the Economist. The article posits a hefty question, that Asia should be able to withstand a knock from the American recession. But as the NewsTrust community read the article, they overwhelmingly agreed that it was chock full of information, giving it a 4.5 in that category.

The question itself is huge. We are talking about continents after all, it's not something you can just ignore. So kudos again to the Economist for giving us some hard hitting journalism. It should not suprise us either. The NewsTrust community has consistently interpreted Economist stories to be solid journalism.

If you are looking for a global economy story with style, then check out "Europe Takes Africa's Fish, and Migrants Follow" from the New York Times. This story was well rounded with context, information and style. The article itself is fantastic - and if we rated photos (an idea that isn't off the table) I would definitely give this piece a fantastic review.

Featured Topic: January 23rd 2008 - World Economics

Our featured topic today is the global economy. Even Google, the seemingly impenetrable market force, has dropped 160 points this week. Combine the looming recession with the Davos convention in Switzerland and the presidential debates, and world economics is on everyones mind.

The featured story of the day comes to us from the Financial Times "The financial turmoil is like an elephant in a dark room." In it, Martin Wolf explains how the world economy got into such trouble, as note by Foreign Policy's blog.

It's a question a lot of people are probably asking - with an increasingly serious tone. And they demand serious journalism to help inform them about what is going on. That's where we can help.

Meanwhile the Davos convention in Switzerland has begun and the real pink elephant in the world economic room, Asia, are both producing some quality journalism.

But we need to find it, together.

A Look Back at Obama Stories

The results are in. There was a tie for the highest quality news story on Obama as you chose them. They were:

• Debunking the Reagen Myth, an opinion piece from the New York Times
• Abroad, fresh image of U.S. from the Christian Science Monitor.

The first article, by Paul Krugen, sparked some interesting discussion in the comments. The two most reasonably critical about the article came from Rory O'Connor

"Paul Krugman...seems to be tilting against Obama, as witnessed by this think piece on Ronald Reagan."

and Mike LaBonte

"Mostly accurate but selective. Evidence is complete but shallow. I would have expected an economist to include numbers."

The second article is a look at the U.S. campaign from a European perspective. According to the article: "He looks like a Kennedy type, and that he's black is very new. In Europe, the idea that a woman can win is accepted. But for a black person to win would represent a radical change - for the US, and the world."

It's interesting to note that the downfall of this article was its rating on "importance." This might be because, although an interesting and well written article, the vantage point of Europeans has less impact in helping "citizens participate in local, state and national government," which is how we have defined "importance" so far at NewsTrust.

Perhaps the Christian Science Monitor article had better overall quality than the New York Times piece? While the European angle was what the story hinged on, it seems the NewsTrust community interpreted that as making it a less important story than the New York Times article. It's an interesting decision and in the end, I believe, a correct assessment.

Our next topic is the situation of world economics. Check out and rate the topics on Global Economy - help us find good journalism.

Featured Topic: January 21, 2008 - Barack Obama

Our featured topic today is senator Barack Obama. With the political season in full swing,  there is potential for really good or bad journalism about our leading politicians and we'd like your help to find the best coverage on the presidential elections. For the next two days, please submit or review quality news and opinions about Barack Obama and check our blog on Wednesday to see what we found.

Our featured story today, "The Choice" by George Packer in the New Yorker, is perhaps the definitive Obama/Hillary article that will come out this week. Upon close examination Clive Davis, at The Spectator, thinks it is "a sympathetic view of the Democratic front -runner." Sometimes the media has a tendency to treat the front-runner like a winner waiting to emerge rather than a candidate, does Packer fall into that trap?

I tend to trust the New Yorker as a source, as does the NewsTrust community, so if there is a bias in favoring Clinton, I imagine it is not malicious.

For me, and also Cyrus Faivar, a freelance journalist in the Bay Area, the definitive except in the article is the following attempt to get at the heart of "the choice" between Obama and Hillary.

"The alternatives facing Democratic voters have been characterized variously as a choice between experience and change, between an insider and an outsider, and between two firsts—a woman and a black man. But perhaps the most important difference between these two politicians—whose policy views, after all, are almost indistinguishable—lies in their rival conceptions of the Presidency. Obama offers himself as a catalyst by which disenchanted Americans can overcome two decades of vicious partisanship, energize our democracy, and restore faith in government. Clinton presents politics as the art of the possible, with change coming incrementally through good governance, a skill that she has honed in her career as advocate, First Lady, and senator. This is the real meaning of the remark she made during one of the New Hampshire debates: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do—the President before had not even tried—but it took a President to get it done.”

 Is this summation one the author has inserted or does it really get to the heart of the issue?

Let us know by reviewing the story and don't forget to check out and review other content on Obama.

Media Literacy 2.0: The Power of NewsTrust

Allowing people to vote on content is fantastic, as long as we remember that journalism is not just a consumer product. The media, although changing, still plays an integral role in our democracy...Rating a story on NewsTrust is not a game - it is an act of journalism because it is a way to determine, socially, what the most accurate, reliable and trustworthy account of a news event is.

How I came to NewsTrust: I often tell people that "I work in citizen journalism." I think a more appropriate explanation is to say that I work to engage readers in the news process. Bringing readers back into the fold of journalism can be very direct, as I experienced with Assignment Zero,  where we asked people to write news stories, or it can be somewhat passive.

Not everyone wants to write stories. Jeff Howe often explained it this way: "asking people to write a story is like asking them to re-write a college term paper." It can feel like homework for many people.

Fair enough.

A much easier way to be engaged in the news is through social news sites.

Welcome to our NewsTrust.net Blog!

Here’s where you’ll find the latest community news, as well as review tips, featured topics, cool new features and special projects. Please chime in and add your comments to the posts on this blog, to let us know what you think.

Our social news network keeps growing. A year after we launched our beta site, we now have thousands of reviewers who rate the news based on journalistic quality, not just popularity. We’re all learning a lot from this citizen knowledge base — as well as becoming more discriminating news readers in the process.

Our staff has grown as well, and I’m pleased to introduce two new team members, who are joining us this month:

• David Cohn - Contributing Editor
• Tish Grier - Community Developer

David and Tish will post here regularly, to share the latest news about NewsTrust.net, and spearhead discussions. Other members of our fine editorial and engineering teams will also contribute regularly to this blog:

• Rory O'Connor - Editorial Director
• David Fox - Technology Director
• Kaizar Campwala -  Associate Editor
• Adam Florin -  Web Engineer
• Subramanya Sastry - Web Engineer
• Leo Romero - Community Organizer

In coming weeks, we’ll also invite our advisors, hosts and other veterans of our community to post their thoughts on this blog. We encourage you all to comment frequently, as well as post your own suggestions on our feedback page.

We all look forward to growing our social network with you, so that more people can find and share good journalism online. If you haven’t already, be sure to spread the word in your community.

Looks like an exciting year ahead for us, and we’re working on a range of partnerships and new features to help expand this promising new form of online collaboration.

Speak to you soon, and many thanks for your wonderful contributions to our cause!

Fabrice Florin - Executive Director, NewsTrust.net

P.S.: To find more about NewsTrust, check our our about page. For help, check our FAQ. If you plan to comment on this blog, please check our terms of service.