Help Expose Bad Journalism

This week, help us promote good journalism by exposing the bad.

Bad Journalism News Hunt
From Monday through Sunday, we'll be hosting a News Hunt for Bad Journalism, to highlight journalism with serious flaws -- news reports and opinions that are inaccurate, biased, irresponsible or superficial. For this special News Hunt, we will be joined by journalism students from Santa Clara University, led by professor Sally Lehrman. 

Each day this week, we'll feature different examples of bad journalism from a variety of sources across the political spectrum, and ask you to rate them, so we can identify the worst stories at the end of the week. Here's how we're breaking it down:

• Monday - News Reports
• Tuesday - Opinions
• Wednesday - Pundits from the Right
• Thursday - Pundits from the Left
• Friday - Media Watchdogs 
• Saturday - Fact-Checkers

(note that this blog post was updated throughout the week with new stories for review -- see below)

News Literacy Guides
Since this News Hunt for Bad Journalism is a departure from our normal routine, we encourage you to consult our News Literacy Guides for helpful tips. First, read these articles from two of our esteemed advisors, who are both journalism professors:

• "Crap Detection 101" by Howard Rheingold (Stanford University)
• "Think Like a Journalist" by Michael Bugeja (Iowa State University)

Also check out NewsTrust's Quick Review Guide on how to review a story. These articles and tutorials will help you ask the right questions and quickly identify bias, misinformation, weak sourcing, shallowness and other problems in reporting.

News Comparisons
How do you rate the stories below? Throughout this week, we've compared questionable stories from several categories. 

News Reports

• Obama team continues efforts to isolate Fox News - Fox News

• Tricky o's 'doctored' photo - New York Post

• Racial tension on Martha's Vineyard simmers as Barack Obama arrives - Daily Telegraph

Opinions

• Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals - Chicago Sun-Times

• Lack of universal health care is a mass killer - The Progressive

• Why Fox News is un-American - Newsweek

Pundits from the Right

• What's Obama gonna give me? - Glenn Beck (Fox News)

• America 2009: Banana Republic - Rush Limbaugh (Rush Limbaugh Show)

• Does Kevin Jennings support NAMBLA? - Sean Hannity (Fox News)

Pundits from the Left

• Conservative infighting dismantles GOP - Keith Olbermann (Countdown)

• Republicans hit new low - Randi Rhodes (Randi Rhodes Show)

• Keeping the pressure on Reid - Rachel Maddow (The Rachel Maddow Show)

Media Watchdogs

• Neutralizing the opposition - Washington Post - by Howard Kurtz

• Attack on White House criticism of Fox follows years of GOP assaults on media - Media Matters

• Obama bashed Bush Administration for criticizing NBC in 2008 - NewsBusters - by Noel Sheppard

Fact-Checkers

• Health care reform: A summary of recent distortions - PolitiFact

• Heather Graham Teaches Us About Polls - FactCheck

Join our News Hunt this week,to help us expose more stories that fail to uphold the journalistic standards that citizens rely on. To keep track of our scores, check our Least Trusted Stories page (listing our lowest-rated stories so far), as well as our Bad Journalism page (featuring recent stories for review).

And if you come across another example of bad journalism, please post it on our site (be sure to tag it "Bad Journalism" under "Topics," so it will be listed in our News Hunt pages).

Make A Donation
If you believe in our cause, please consider making a donation to NewsTrust. Your contribution will help promote good journalism -- and pay for quality news feeds, new tools, site improvements, community outreach and educational programs. We're nonprofit and funded through grants and donations from members like you. Can you show your support today with a one-time, tax-deductible donation?

-- by Fabrice Florin, Derek Hawkins and Kaizar Campwala

Health Care News Hunt - Final Results

On Tuesday we wrapped up a 10-day Health Care News Hunt with the Huffington Post and its Eyes and Ears team. For an overview of this collaboration, check our HuffPost partner Matt Palevsky's first blog post, as well as our own project update.

With the help of our hosts, Kristin Gorski and Patricia Blochowiak, as well as 95 new members from the Huffington Post, we posted about 146 health care stories, 51 of which received a NewsTrust rating.  Recent stories on this topic can be found on our Health Care page.

Here are the final results of our Health Care News Hunt.

Top Rated Stories on Health Care
Here are some of our top rated stories for this News Hunt:

• More is Less - This American Life / NPR (podcast, 1 hour)
• In Netherlands, Insurers Compete Over Quality of Care - NewsHour / PBS (video)
• Going Out of Business? - FactCheck (News Analysis)
• A Texas-Sized Health Care Failure - New York Times (Opinion) (see reviews)
• The Lie Machine - Rolling Stone (Special Report)
• "Don't Get Sick": The Truth About GOP Health Plans? - Huffington Post (News Analysis)

For a full listing of health care stories reviewed in this News Hunt, check our top rated stories, as well as the list of all stories posted in the past 10 days.

We focused on different types of stories throughout this News Hunt: mainstream news on Monday, opinions on Tuesday, TV news on Wednesday, fact-checkers on Thursday, comedy news on Friday, worst journalism on Saturday, and breaking news in the final days.  Here are our findings for each category.

News Reports - The Public Option
We began our News Hunt last Monday, October 5th, by comparing news reports on debate in Congress over whether to include a government-run insurance plan -- a "public option" -- in a final health care reform bill. Most news stories we reviewed focused on how Congress would merge a bill that contains a public option provision with one that doesn't. Our top stories came from the Great Falls Tribune, the Hill, and Salon (read our original analysis here).

Opinions - The Public Option
The following Tuesday we compared three opinions that took different views on the controversial public insurance measure. A Republican state senator from Maryland argued against it in the Baltimore Sun; the founder of a failed insurance exchange firm wrote in the New York Times that without a public option reform would be ineffectual; and a blogger from Think Progress said political maneuvering is the Democrats' best hope for slipping the controversial measure past Republicans. Our community posted more than 20 reviews on these stories and found Cappy McGarr's op-ed in the Times to be most insightful (read our full results here).

TV News on Health Care
On Wednesday we featured TV news on health care. Our top rated video came from PBS's NewsHour, which examined the health care system in the Netherlands and the overhaul that took place there in 2006. The special report garnered high ratings from a dozen reviewers, who were  impressed by its detail and diversity of sourcing. Fox News and MSNBC ran news reports on the public option, which our community dismissed as too partisan.

Fact-Checkers on Health Care
Since arguments over how to reform the nation's health care system boiled over with misinformation and accusation this summer, we've gone out of our way to feature those news outlets that scrutinize claims from all sides. On Thursday we focused on news analysis from fact-checkers and found that matters had calmed down significantly since August's death panel rumors dominated coverage.

FactCheck.org debunked a new health care ad from Americans for Prosperity that purported Medicare will be bankrupt in eight years. "Yikes," FactCheck wrote:

"Quite a scary claim to make about a program that encompasses 16 percent of the federal budget and benefits 45 million Americans. But the word "bankrupt" is far too strong to accurately describe Medicare’s problems. ... We don’t mean to say that the projections about the future of the HI trust fund shouldn’t be taken seriously, or that Medicare in general isn’t facing long-term funding issues. But it’s not going to be “bankrupt in eight years.”

We also featured the indefatigable PolitiFact's excellent roundup of high-profile statements about health care, as rated on their Pulitzer Prize-winning Trust-O-Meter. Nine pages of vetted public statements earned a high rating from NewsTrust -- and we'll be checking back as a reform bill makes its way through Congress.

Comedy News on Health Care
We closed out  our week with a comparison of three Daily Show clips on the health care debate -- two from August and one from September -- to see how leading news comedian and media critic Jon Stewart had covered this topic. In his most recent clip, Stewart knocked Democrats in Congress for failing to include a public option in the Finance Committee's bill, despite holding a super majority in the Senate.

Bad Journalism on Health Care
Over the weekend, we compared our dogs of the week -- the lowest-rated stories we found on health care. "What we would have told Obama" from Fox News, "Tricky 'O's doctored photo" from the New York Post, and a news analysis from NewsBusters each received a rating of 2.0 or lower from our community.

Breaking News: Insurance Industry Report
This Monday, October 12th, ahead of the Finance Committee's vote, the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) released a report commissioned by the top health insurance industry trade group that said reform proposals in Congress would increase costs for American families.  The report was cited in most stories we reviewed on the Finance Committee's vote -- and drew swift condemnation from the White House, Congressional Democrats and many observers. We rounded up reactions from prominent health care bloggers. 

Ezra Klein, of the Washington Post, was extremely critical, comparing the report to similar studies conducted by PWC on behalf of tobacco companies:

"[I]f the PWC's report doesn't offer much in the way of trustworthy policy analysis, it is an interesting looking at the changing politics of the issue. In short, the insurance industry is getting scared. After many months of quiet constructiveness, they're launching a broadside on the week of the Senate Finance Committee's vote. The White House, which had a pleasant meeting with the industry's leadership last week, was shocked by the report, and so too was the Senate Finance Committee. The era of cooperation seems to be over, and they weren't given much advance warning. But the report might have another impact, too: The evident anger and fear of the insurance industry might do a bit to reassure liberals that this plan is worth supporting, after all."

The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn noted several omissions and inconsistencies in the PWC report, and in an update said the insurance industry's conflict of interest was all too clear. And Kevin Drum, of Mother Jones, said a weakening of the penalty in the Baucus Bill for not purchasing health insurance probably motivated the report.

Breaking News: Senate Finance Committee Votes
Our News Hunt ended this Tuesday with breaking news coverage of the highly anticipated vote on the Senate Finance Committee's health care bill. Nicknamed the "Baucus Bill" after Sen. Max Baucus, the Democratic committee chairman, the legislation won approval yesterday with 13 Democratic votes and one Republican vote from Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. 

The Politico portrayed the vote as a milestone for both Baucus and President Obama, who has repeatedly called health care his top domestic priority. And since the committee was widely expected to approve the bill along party lines, several publications featured the defection of Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe as a key aspect of the story -- but some news outlets were split over just how her vote was secured.

"The vote moves President Barack Obama's goal of overhauling the nation’s health care system one step closer to reality," the Politico wrote, adding:

"Baucus’s hand was strengthened markedly when Snowe became the only Senate Republicans to vote for health reform —- ending weeks of speculation about whether any Republicans would sign onto the Democratic reform bill."

But according to the LA Times, Snowe's vote was less an achievement for Baucus than for the White House, "which had heavily courted Snowe, and it allowed overhaul advocates to claim that there was a vestige of GOP support for the measure." Bloomberg echoed this notion in its story on the vote:

"That marked the first time a Republican in either the Democratic-controlled Senate or House has supported the revamp legislation, President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. ... Baucus had spent months courting Snowe and other Republicans, making his committee the last of five congressional panels to complete its version of the legislation."

Thanks to our Partners and Hosts

We'd like to thank our partners at the Huffington Post and Eyes and Ears for making this a lively and successful News Hunt! It was a pleasure to work with HuffPost Citizen Journalism Editor Matt Palevsky, as well as HuffPost Politics editors Dan Froomkin and Rachel Weiner, and all 95 Huffington Post members, who made invaluable contributions to our search for great journalism on health care. Kudos as well to our gracious hosts Kristin Gorski and Patricia Blochowiak, who led our community in this effort, reviewing dozens of stories and posting some true journalistic gems on this important issue. Last but not least, we're deeply grateful to our wonderful NewsTrust reviewers. Your collective recommendations have helped thousands of citizens find health care journalism that is informative, substantive and meaningful to their lives. Many thanks to you all for your hard work and great insights!

As Congress continues to negotiate a health care reform bill, we'll be tracking the best (and the worst) coverage from across the political spectrum on NewsTrust. Check our Health Care and U.S. Congress topic pages to weigh in on the latest news and opinion on this landmark debate -- and if you find a great story on health care, be sure to post it on NewsTrust for review!

- by Derek Hawkins and Fabrice Florin, with Kaizar Campwala

Health Care News Hunt Update

On Monday we kicked off a week-long partnership with the Huffington Post and its Eyes and Ears team in to find great journalism about health care reform. For this Health Care News Hunt, our communities have teamed up to review news coverage of the ongoing health care debate, as Congressional leaders negotiate how to merge competing versions of a reform bill. 

We'd also like to give a warm welcome to the eighty new members who have signed up for this News Hunt from Huffington Post so far. Thanks for joining forces with us for this important cause! For tips on how to review on NewsTrust, read our quick guide. And if you haven't already, check our HuffPost partner Matt Palevsky's excellent blog post about our goals for this project.  

Here's an update on what we found so far, as well as as an invitation to review new stories today, with a focus on TV news coverage of this important issue.

First Results
Most of the news and opinions we've reviewed so far have dealt with the behind-the-scenes politics of passing reforms, as the bill enters the final stages of creation. This is a far cry from what we found in our last Health Care News Hunt in August, when coverage was dominated by raucous town hall meetings and false claims about "death panels."

Yesterday, in our weekly Sparring Opinions feature, we asked NewsTrust members to review two op-eds and a blog post on whether Congress should include a provision for a government-run insurance program -- a "public option" -- in the bill it will put to a vote in coming weeks. A Republican state senator from Maryland argued against it in the Baltimore Sun; the founder of a failed insurance exchange firm wrote in the New York Times that without a public option reform would be ineffectual; and a blogger from Think Progress said political maneuvering is the Democrats' best hope for slipping the controversial measure past Republicans.

Based on 24 reviews between the three stories, our members rated Cappy McGarr's op-ed in the New York Times, "A Texas-sized health care failure," highest. Founder of the now-defunct Texas Purchasing Alliance, McGarr wrote that personal experience convinced him health insurance exchanges -- a prominent alternative to the public option -- don't create enough competition to cut costs. "It would be smarter for Congress to revisit the idea of creating a public plan that could provide an attractive choice for consumers and real competition for private insurers, to give them the incentive to offer good coverage at affordable prices," he concluded.

Kristin Gorski, co-host of this week's Health Care News Hunt, called McGarr's story "compelling" and "clearly written," and Patricia Berrini gave it high marks for the author's expertise on the issue.

Igor Volsky's blog post from Think Progress also received a positive rating, though several members, like Kiku Botura, questioned the logic of waiting to add a public insurance option to the bill until late in deliberations. Our community dismissed the Baltimore Sun op-ed from Maryland State Senator Andy Harris for being light on factual evidence and rejecting the public option without explanation.

On Monday we opened our News Hunt by comparing news and analysis on the public option from mainstream sources. News centered on Montana Senator Max Baucus, who, as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has emerged as the key player in crafting a health care reform bill.

The Great Falls Tribune, a daily newspaper from Baucus's home state, wrote that Baucus had upset Montana progressives when he voted against including a public option in his committee's bill.

"Baucus said "there's a lot to like" about a public option — a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers — but in the end Baucus said he didn't see how a health care reform bill containing such a provision could pass the full Senate.

"My job is to put together a bill that will become law," Baucus told the committee before voting "no" on two public-option amendments on Tuesday. "In the Senate, that means my job is to put together a bill that gets 60 votes. Now I can count, and no one has been able to show me how they can get to 60 votes with a public option in the bill."

... Baucus says he supports the public option, having drafted a version of a public-option plan in his white paper released last November. But Baucus' critics say he has done little to try to make the public option a reality."

The Hill reported Baucus's decision pitted him against other Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, who have vowed to deliver on a public option.

"Having deferred the issue to Baucus this summer, Reid signaled on Thursday that he is prepared to join Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who both pushed a public option amendment that failed in a committee vote last Tuesday.

“We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents on Thursday, as reported by the Las Vegas Sun. “I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us.”

On the same day, [Iowa Sen. Tom ] Harkin gave The Des Moines Register the same message, suggesting clearly that he will side with Reid against Baucus."

In a similar story, the Washington Post suggested negotiations could continue through November without the full support of Senate Democrats like Rockefeller and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, both of whom have said the current versions of reform bills are deficient.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times and Salon both spoke with Congressional and White House aides who say that the Obama Administration has been privately working to shore up Senate support for the public option ahead of a vote.

Today's Comparison: TV News on Health Care
All week long we'll be searching for quality news and opinion on health care reform and the bill making its way through Congress now. 

Today we're focusing on how TV news networks are covering this issue (see our recommended stories below); on Thursday we'll feature fact-checkers, and on Friday we'll feature comedy news.

How are TV news networks covering the debate on health care reform? Which outlets are providing the best coverage, reporting on the issues with substance and balance? Try comparing these three TV news segments:

• In the Netherlands, insurers compete over quality of care - PBS NewsHour

• Breaking the bank? - Fox News

• House behind a public option - MSNBC

Join our News Hunt with the Huffington Post and Eyes & Ears -- visit our Health Care page and review or post a story today. 

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

Win a Member Award

We're pleased to announce the NewsTrust Member Awards! 

Starting in October, NewsTrust will present monthly awards to some of of our best reviewers, to recognize their contributions in a variety of categories, such as Top Rated or Most Active Reviewer (see below).

We hope this will give our most committed members the honor they deserve for their hard work and dedication to NewsTrust's values.

In the first week of November, NewsTrust editors will analyze member activity from October and announce the winners on this blog, as well as on our home page and email newsletters. (UPDATE: Meet our Winners for October 2009)

Here are the six awards we're offering for reviewers who participate in the month of October. All NewsTrust members are eligible -- good luck!

• Top Rated Reviewer
This award will go to the member whose story reviews have the highest average rating for the month. The top rated reviewer must have completed ten or more reviews that month and received at least ten ratings from trusted members (with a member level of three or more).

• Most Thorough Reviewer
This award will go to the member whose reviews are the most in-depth, based on their average number of answers that month (e.g.: number of ratings, notes, links or quotes per review). The reviewer must have done ten or more story reviews that month to qualify.

• Most Active Reviewer
This award will go to the member who reviewed the most stories for the month. Ten or more reviews are needed to qualify.

• Top Rated Post
This award will go to the member who posted this month's top rated story. To qualify, this top rated story must have at least five reviews from trusted members.

• Most Reviewed Post
This award will go to the member who posted the story with the most reviews that month. To qualify, this story must have at least five favorable reviews from trusted members. 

• Trusted Member of the Month
This award will go to the member who best applies the NewsTrust values in the eyes of the editors, through the quality of his or her reviews and other contributions to our cause. This member must have done ten or more reviews that month, these reviews must be favorably rated by other trusted members and his or her member level must be three or more.

Member award winners will be featured on our home page, newsletters and blog, and will also receive a NewsTrust mug or similar gift, as a token of our appreciation.

Winners can only receive one award per year. NewsTrust staff and directors cannot not qualify for these awards. Member awards will be given for the next three months, through the end of the year.

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. 

Do you know someone who also appreciates good journalism? Send them an invitation to try out NewsTrust for themselves.

Please tell us what you think about this new community program! Drop a comment here on the blog, or email us directly at editors-at-newstrust.net.

UPDATED 11/05/09

Smart Feeds Launches Today!

Today, we're pleased to announce the launch of Smart Feeds.

This new service from NewsTrust surfaces interesting news stories recommended by hundreds of trusted sources and social news sites -- as well as some of the greatest minds in 'link journalism.' All day long, we collect Twitter news links from people like NYU professor Jay Rosen or Wall Street Journal editor Alan Murray, and triangulate them with news feeds like Aljazeera, BBC, Digg, Huffington Post and NPR, to name but a few. Together, these 'smart feeds' harness the collective intelligence of thousands of professionals and volunteers from around the web.

Check it out for yourself: visit Today's Feeds for a short list of popular news of the day.

We created this service to help you find more relevant news on our site, from a more diverse mix of sources, and to extend the NewsTrust community with recommendations from people we trust. Smart Feeds also makes it easier to submit stories on our site, by pre-filling story meta-data from our sources, around the clock. Once these recommendations have been queued on the Todays Feeds page, you can review them with a single click -- without having to submit them from scratch (but please check that their story info is accurate, since they have not yet been reviewed by our editors).

We're very grateful to all the folks who create these feeds for sharing their expertise so generously -- and to our API partners for their invaluable contributions to our cause. APIs that we use to fetch story metadata include: Daylife, Digg, NewsRack, and Tweetmeme. Thank you all!

We'd also like to give special thanks to our lead engineer Subbu Sastry for creating this advanced news filtering system. This service has been months in the making and we really appreciate Subbu's thoughtful and nuanced work on this complex project. Kudos as well to our editorial and development teams, for their great contributions to this important milestone.

We'd love to hear from you about Smart Feeds during this beta period. What do you think of this service? How could we make it work better for you? To recommend a feed, or share your thoughts about this service, add a comment to this blog post, or in our Feedback page.

Enjoy!

Top Stories on Health Care Reform

Euthanasia. Rationing. Socialism.

As the health care debate boiled over last week, reporting on the competing claims from opponents and advocates of reform overwhelmed news coverage across the country, and even made it overseas. While some publications did little more than record the daily developments, others took a hard-nosed look at the facts behind both sides' arguments. Our community spent the week reviewing these stories, finding those that attempted to clear the air of myth and misinformation to be the most effective.

Our top story came from PolitiFact, which gave Sarah Palin a "Pants on Fire" (NT reviews) rating for writing on her Facebook page that seniors and the disabled will have to "stand in front of Obama's 'death panel," where bureaucrats will decide if they are worthy of health care. "We agree with Palin that such a system would be evil," PolitiFact said, after scrutinizing the 1000-plus pages of the Democratic health care bill. "But it's definitely not what President Barack Obama or any other Democrat has proposed."

Palin's claim didn't survive NewsTrust's vetting, either. We compared a Daily Beast op-ed (NT reviews) and a Washington Post interview (NT reviews) with Republican Senator Johnny Isakson, and found that, in Sen. Isakson's words, the "death panel" remark was "nuts."

Several major British sources defended their own country's health care system last week against conservative criticisms of it being "socialist" and "Orwellian." The Guardian reported (NT reviews) on the controversy:

"Top-ranking Republicans have joined bloggers and well-funded free market organisations in scorning the NHS for its waiting lists and for 'rationing' the availability of expensive treatments.

As myths and half-truths circulate, British diplomats in the US are treading a delicate line in correcting falsehoods while trying to stay out of a vicious domestic dogfight over the future of American health policy."

The Independent, meanwhile, took the opportunity to cover (NT reviews) the LA Forum in Inglewood, Calif., where thousands of Americans went to receive free dental and medical exams last week. The forum, the Independent wrote, reflected the "brutal truth" about U.S. health care:

"In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an 'evil and Orwellian' example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system ...

In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted."

The BBC asked (NT reviews) if the protests outside the town halls across the country were "grassroots" or "astroturf," and the Christian Science Monitor offered an informative "Health Reform 101" (NT reviews) that gave a cursory overview of the provisions in the health reform bills.

One of our top rated opinions took a skeptical view of health insurance reform as it now stands. The Wall Street Journal rejected (NT reviews) current proposals that insurers "cover anyone at any time and at nearly uniform rates:"

"ObamaCare would impose on all 50 states rules that have already proven to be failures in numerous states. Because these mandates would raise the cost of insurance, ObamaCare would then turn around and subsidize individuals to buy the insurance that the politicians made more expensive. Only in government could such irrationality be sold as 'reform.'"

This week: Afghanistan with Worldfocus
This week, NewsTrust is joining forces with WNET’s Worldfocus and its viewers to find quality news and opinion on Afghanistan.

As Afghanistan prepares for its second ever presidential election, we’re looking for good journalism about this troubled nation, and how its many challenges also impact its neighbors and the international community.

To join our Afghanistan News Hunt, review a story on our Afghanistan page.

-- Derek Hawkins, with Fabrice Florin, Kaizar Campwala and Joey Baker

Sparring Opinions: Afghanistan Strategy

Thursday will mark the second-ever presidential election in Afghanistan, raising questions over how to stabilize the country and foster a more effective government. In this week's Sparring Opinions, we're comparing two op-eds on this issue.

Greg Mills, a former NATO commander in Afghanistan, writes in the Christian Science Monitor that Western governments need to develop a more "holistic" approach -- one that combines diplomacy, funding for local projects and economic development -- to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a failed state. "Instead of responding with a redoubled effort, how about a healthy dose of humility, a recognition that success will depend on internal Afghan actions rather than external Western ones?"

Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan contend in the Weekly Standard that President Obama must send more U.S. troops and military resources to Afghanistan if he is to avoid mistakes his predecessor made in Iraq. "Our own assessment ... is that more forces will be needed, and very soon. The administration's body-language (and, in the case of the National Security Advisor's comments last month, explicit statements) suggest that any such request will be received skeptically if not with hostility."

Which of these Sparring Opinions do you think makes the better case? Weigh in by adding your reviews for these two stories:

• What the West needs in Afghanistan: humility - Christian Science Monitor

• Déjà vu all over again - The Weekly Standard

For more news and opinion on this important topic, join our Afghanistan News Hunt -- and help find the best journalism on this troubled country.

-- Derek Hawkins

How Journalists Should End Every Article - With Tasty Hyperlinks

Over at the online journalism blog Paul Bradshaw has a great post on the editorial value of links.

He writes:

Yesterday I discovered that the Birmingham Post features writer Jo Ind has started incorporating Del.icio.us social bookmarks into her articles. If you look at the bottom of this health article you’ll see the following line:

“To learn more about Select Research and the body volume index, see Jo Ind’s suggested links or visit her blog.”

 

And he is absolutely right to take a moment and praise Jo Ind. In my conversations with editors I've actually had to argue the value of linking to outside sources. Now personally, I think this debate is dead and decomposed but, just in case, it goes something like this.

• A: We are in the business of informing people.
• B: Having links to good information is an editorial service
• C: If you provide good links, people will rely on you as a "news recomender" and come back for more.

Take a moment to appreciate that argument and you can understand why we have Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, NewsTrust and other news aggregators. The links that are produced can ADD value to a news article produced by a journalist. That's why most of the news aggregators (NewsTrust included) create widgets that you can incorporate into your content with simple cutting and pasting.

Here's an example from our recent collaboration with Scientific American. One article they produced was on flourescent light bulbs and their impact on the environment. It was a great story. 

Now imagine you are a first time Scientific American reader - you ended up on this article vertically through some search engine or clicking a link. After all, this is how tons of traffic is shifted around on the web - through search.

You reach the end of the article, but you want more. Odds are you are interested in the environment, that's what your search terms were about when you landed on this page. Who knows, you might been interested in just this specific story. Instead of assuming the job had been completed by this one story, at the end of this article Sciam gave the reader a blast of information. They included a NewsTrust.net widget that displayed the top rated news articles on the topic of the environment (see image below).

One of three things will happen at this point.

1. The reader got all the information they needed and continues surfing the internet for other articles.
2. The reader liked this specific story and submits it to NewsTrust for review - believing it should be on the list of top rated news stories.
3. The reader sees the headline of a news story on this widget they found interesting and clicks over to read it.

What does this translate to for Sciam?

1. That reader may never return to Sciam again? Or at least - not until a search term brings them back - outcome is neutral to bad.
2. Sciam gets more readers and constructive feedback on the article - outcome is positive
3. Sciam becomes more than just a news source - they are a portal. The reader knows they can come back to Sciam not just for original environmental news, but to find out what is going on all over the web. Outcome is positive.

Notice that the only bad outcome is with option number one - and that is the ONLY option if more links aren't provided at the bottom.

The beauty of all this: It takes literally seconds to insert a NewsTrust widget. Here's a tutorial.

Step one: Go to NewsTrust.net 's Tools page where you will find a link to our widget maker.
Step two: Create your widget: It's a point-and-click operation. Just pick a subject, a listing (I suggest top rated), source type, etc. Don't forget to specify how many articles you want listed on your widget. Unless you know what size you need your widget to be, leave it on auto.
Step three: Copy the html/javascript produced below.
Step four: Paste the script where you want it to appear.

And then you're done. They also look great in the sidebar of blogs. If the topic you are looking for doesn't have a widget - contact us.

What News Do You Share? Is Your Site Optimized for Social Media?

I'm always weary of news buzzwords - but this one caught my eye: "Social Media Optimization."

At this point in the web's development "search engine optimization" is standard. I challenge you to find a serious web publisher who doesn't recognize the acronym SEO from a mile away.

Social media, however, isn't on everyone's radar. My question in reading this blog post from the Early Edition, which tipped me off on "Social Media Optimization, isn't how news organizations can leverage social media to get more traffic - but on what rubric they are doing so. Do we want news organizations to clamor for traffic or quality reporting - and is there a way to achieve both?

The World Needs A Better News Filter

Chris Brogan, one of the web's leading thinkers on social media, writes "We Still Need Better Filters."

He says:

With billions of blogs and hundreds of thousands of podcasts and with Flickr and with site after site after site worth of data to consume, we have the “get it to my desk or phone” part of the problem fairly well managed. With services like Google Reader and Friend Feed, and del.icio.us to a lesser extent, we’re starting to find ways to collect all this information in one place (or a few places).

But what’s missing are filters. Twitter has no filtering mechanism, nor even a “bubble up the good stuff” mechanism. Google Reader lets friends share what they think are good blog posts, but obviously this works out that what YOU think is a good post and what I think is a good post might not always match up. There needs to be another layer of filtering such that I can choose to read your promoted posts, but I should then get the opportunity to bubble my best (and by “best,” I mean most closely informationally aligned) sharing sources to the top of the heap.

It’s all still too linear. Too boolean.

Who’s making the right kinds of filters to promote the best stuff? Who’s helping us suppress the drivel?

How would YOU like to see filters work?

What a way to state the problem. Particularly "we have the “get it to my desk or phone” part of the problem fairly well managed." There is a digital divide, but it is shrinking - and once on the web, access to information levels out for everyone (putting government censorship on the shelf for sake of argument).

Access is less and less the problem. What we are faced with is too much information and not enough media literacy.

By reading Chris' post I began to wonder about what exactly it is that needs filtering. Chris mentioned Google Reader and Friend Feed, both great services, but hardly "social news" sites. Both allow me to easily track what my friends are reading, but there is no collective wisdom. When I wake up in the morning and open up Google Reader, I view the articles Robert Scoble has shared and I trust them only so much as I trust Robert Scoble's ability to recommend good technology news. But this method just means I have to keep track of individuals as news recommenders, a task that doesn't scale up. Still - this kind of filter (human filters) is a good start if you feel confidant about the individual.

One step up from that is creating a social news site, like Digg or NewsTrust, where you are essentially aggregating news recommender and finding a way to weigh everyone's recommendations against each other. Of course, this opens a whole new can of worms, but it is scalable - assuming you get enough people with enough interests, you'd have an expert to recommend and review stories around every possible topic.

Is there a magic filter for the web? Of course not. But we are inching in the right direction. Sites like Twitter and Friend Feed will continue to empower individual news recommenders like Robert Scoble and we hope NewsTrust.net is moving towards a more powerful way to find news you can trust on the web.