Top Stories on India

Last week our featured topic was India. On November 26th, a group of ten armed militants stormed Mumbai, killing more than 170 civilians and police and injuring hundreds more. Although the country has suffered more violent terror attacks in the past decade, the three-day siege of Mumbai had far reaching consequences for India's foreign policy. Neighboring Pakistan is under new pressure from the international community to seek out those within its border suspected of coordinating the attacks, and both countries have been forced to reexamine their approach in the disputed border region of Jammu and Kashmir.

Here are some of our top rated news and opinion on this important topic:

News

• Mumbai: the Kashmir connection - Global Pulse
• A tragedy less telegenic - Outlook India
• Pakistan on tightrope with militant aid - Christian Science Monitor
• In outcry over siege, two Indias emerge - Washington Post
• India: an elephant, not a tiger - Economist
• Muslims in India put aside grievances to repudiate terrorism - New York Times

Opinion

• Why the United States got it wrong - The Hindu
• India's other dangerous neighbor - Foreign Policy
• Risk factors - New Yorker
• The media's disingenuous failure to state the obvious - Slate
• Mumbai was not our 9/11 - Common Dreams

To see more top rated stories on India, check our full listing page:

http://newstrust.net/topics/india/top_rated/news?timespan=week

'Most Trusted' Stories
To help you find the best stories on our site, we've added a new section to our home page and topic pages: click on the blue 'Most Trusted' tab to see our highest rated stories for the week. 

For example, click on the blue 'Most Trusted' tab in our India topic page, to see our top rated stories on this topic last week:

http://newstrust.net/topics/india#most_trusted

And our 'Most Recent' section continues to list our top news and opinion of the day, including stories for review. Which do you prefer to see listed first? our new Most Trusted stories? or our Most Recent stories? Tell us what you think on our feedback page:
http://newstrust.net/about/site_feedback

 
This week: Religion and Politics
This week's featured topic is Religion and Politics. As we face a world in turmoil, faith has a profound influence on our lives and governments. It has been called the defining issue of our times, as it impacts many related topics such as ethnic relations, free speech, poverty, women's rights, gay rights, welfare and the environment. How do we find the right balance between our individual beliefs and the needs of an increasingly diverse society? We're looking for journalism that explores the intersection of religion and politics, so we can better understand how these two forces shape our world. Please review our recommended news and opinion on this issue -- and submit new stories -- on our Religion and Politics topic page.

Coming Soon:

Here is our editorial calendar for the next few weeks:

12/22/08 - Social Change 

12/29/08 - Best of 2008

01/05/09 - Bush Legacy

01/12/09 - International Topic TBD

01/19/09 - Obama Administration 

Happy holidays from all of us at NewsTrust!

Derek Hawkins, with Kaizar Campwala and Fabrice Florin

Global Warming Results | A debate on Balance and Fairness

As the leaders of more than 180 countries convened in Poznan, Poland, for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, we turned our attention to Global Warming for last week's featured topic. Many of the week's stories centered on how the incoming Obama Administration could alter how the United States responds to climate change in the international arena. Others discussed ongoing efforts to address the issue on the local and state level. And among our top rated were several stories that examined how nations will continue to cut carbon emissions in the face of worldwide economic downturn.

Our friends at the Council on Foreign Relations partnered with us on this topic, and we kicked off our week with a feature of their Climate Change Crisis Guide, an extensive multimedia presentation published this fall on their website.

Top stories

Here's a list of last week's top news and opinion on global warming:

News

Ancient skills 'could reverse global warming' - The Independent
As more eat meat, a bid to cut emissions - New York Times
Carbon trading: environmental godsend or giant shell game? - Discover Magazine
James L. Jones' energy views worry some environmentalists - Los Angeles Times
Rain forests to headline at Poznon - Green Grok
Earth to Washington - Mother Jones

Opinion

The new greens like it big - Newsweek
Global warming: too close to home - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The 23-billion-ton gorilla at the climate talks - Green Grok
The free markets will never tackle climate change effectively - The Guardian
Climate change from Poland to the poles - NPR

Balance and fairness: a debate

As is the case in many professional and academic circles, global warming proved a controversial issue for NewsTrust members as well. The topic helped spark a week-long debate within our Editors group over the difference between the journalistic principles of balance and fairness.

Our Editors group consists of 17 volunteer editors and advisors and three staff members who correspond to make some of the core decisions at NewsTrust -- their discussion of balance and fairness last week is critical in honing our review tools and represents a key aspect of how we rate the news. Several questions took center-stage: Are balance and fairness identical? Do they complement each other? Or can they work against one another? Can a piece be fair but not balanced, or balanced but not fair? How does sourcing come into play? We culled some thoughtful perspectives on this issue.

Dan Kennedy, a Northeastern journalism professor and media critic, argued the two principles come into conflict. "I'm someone who believes that balance often works *against* fairness," he said. "The idea that balance equals fairness has turned more than one so-called objective journalist into a stenographer of disingenuous spin and worse." In Dan's view, balance and fairness require negotiation in a piece of journalism. For example, if a reporter quotes all sides of a story in the name of "balance," irrespective of the facts involved, it is probably "unfair."

Kaizar Campwala, NewsTrust Associate Editor, held the opposite was often true -- that a story may not be fair if it's not balanced. "By only using sources critical of the verdict (balance)," he said, referencing this trial analysis from the Christian Science Monitor, "the author appears to be taking sides in the story (fairness)."

Walter Cox, a NewsTrust host and expert on Soviet Studies, differed with both Kaizar and Dan, and used what he found to be one-sidedness in the global warming debate to illustrate his point. "What I have observed is that 'fair' in the current media context often amounts to a virtual blackballing of legitimate dissenting opinion," he said, crying foul on the lack of global warming skeptics featured in news coverage. Global warming coverage, he argued, lacked balance and was only "fair" in that it captured the prevailing viewpoint on the issue.

Wrapping up the discussion Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University, maintained that fairness and balance are two distinct concepts that often enhance each other in quality journalism. He offered this explanation:

Balance does means gathering sufficient facts to understand a news topic as objectively as possible ... Imagine a puzzle with each piece a fact. The more facts, the more likely our deduction will be correct, concerning what the mosaic means or depicts, with the proviso that some of the puzzle pieces will be held from view so that we cannot apply inductive reasoning. ... Fairness is deciding what facts from that balanced picture should be omitted from a report because they do not help complete the picture or somehow detract from it.

Without a doubt, other experts and practitioners of journalism butt heads on the definitions of balance and fairness in the same manner as our editors. But a survey of several professional codes of ethics shows some consensus among news organizations on how to separate the two. Fairness, as explained by Journalism.org, Society of Professional Journalists, Center for Citizen Media and others, is as much a method of good journalism as it is a principle. Fairness begins with a reporter's approach to an issue and translates into his or her construction of the story. Balance is more concrete, dealing with the extent to which the author cited key parties and sought diverse viewpoints to support the information in a story. We try to capture these ideas in our Reviewer FAQ (read how we define balance and fairness on our site).

We extend a special thanks to all our editors for initiating and weighing in on this fascinating debate. Your thoughtful comments and professional input are invaluable as we continue with this experiment in journalism.

This week: India

This week's featured topic is India and the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. What are their repercussions on Indian politics? How will this affect India's relations with its nuclear rival Pakistan? Help us find journalism that explores the complexities of India's own sprawling population, as well as the issues that are threatening peace in South Asia. Please review our recommended news and opinion on this issue -- and submit new stories -- on our India topic page.

Top stories on poverty

During the week of Thanksgiving, Poverty was our featured topic. We sought out journalism that focused on how various aspects of the economic crisis have affected impoverished Americans, and others at the bottom of the economic ladder worldwide.

Stories on the now familiar topics of home foreclosures, decline in the auto industry and joblessness surfaced among our top rated. Some news organizations ran special stories on philanthropy, assistance programs and food in light of the holiday. This generally mellow week in news was rattled by the terror attacks in Bombay, India, which swept across the city from Wednesday, Nov. 26, through Saturday, Nov. 29, and claimed some 170 lives.

Top stories

Here is a selection of last week's top rated news and opinion on poverty:

News

• EU calls for aid to poor nations – BBC News 
• Consumers foregoing retailers discounts as fear sets in – Washington Post 
• Charities can't keep up with deepening – Los Angeles Times
• Americans' food stamp use near all-time high – Washington Post 
• In Michigan's auto belt, it's nail biting time – Christian Science Monitor
• Job centers see crush of people in need – New York Times
• A case study in housing collapse – St. Petersburg Times
• More indigenous Guatemalans turn to sex works, stoking HIV fears – Miami Herald
• 3,000 dead from cholera in Zimbabwe – The Independent
• Study cites toll of AIDS policy in South Africa – International Herald Tribune

Opinion

• What to do – New York Review of Books
• Should teachers ignore poverty's impact? – Washington Post 
• Mumbai terrorists wear uniform of young Indians – New America Media
• Don't get depressed, it's not 1929 – Newsweek
• The yawning gap in education within developing countries – Economist

This week: Global Warming
This week's featured topic is Global Warming, in collaboration with the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR.org). At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, leaders are meeting to develop a global response to this growing issue. Optimism about a new administration in Washington has been tempered by concerns about the world economic crisis. We're looking for good journalism that explains the trade-offs between reducing carbon emissions and stemming a world-wide economic recession. Please review our recommended news and opinion on this issue -- and submit new stories -- on our Global Warming topic page.

For a thoughtful overview of this complex issue, we encourage you to check CFR.org's excellent Climate Change Crisis Guide. This multimedia presentation is a treasure trove of well-researched information about Global Warming, as seen from a variety of perspectives.

By Derek Hawkins, with Fabrice Florin and Kaizar Campwala