NewsTrust - Blog Archive

Featured Topic - February 13th 2008 - U.S. Congress

[Ed: We're pleased to welcome Beth Wellington to the NewsTrust team. Beth is our new Community Developer, and will work with Tish Grier and others on our team to help grow our community. She's also a  host for our U.S. Congress topic on NewsTrust, having written a monthly column on Congressional legislation for llrx.com since March 2006.This week on NewsTrust, we're featuring the U.S. Congress from February 13-17.   We hope you'll submit new stories on this important topic.]

Hi everybody.  Beth, here.  To give you some ideas on where to look for stories about this week's featured topic, you might want to start with a review of Conor Kenny's detailed preview of Congressional action through February 15 over at Congresspedia.  Then, join in our hunt for quality journalism reflecting a variety of viewpoints and review our recommended stories on congressional issues.

So what's been happening in Congress? Yesterday, the Senate passed its version of a replacement for the Protect America Act, providing retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies, two topics I've written about previously.  The Senate acceded to the Administration’s request to shield telecom companies which conducted domestic surveillance without a warrant from the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court, while the House version allowed continued legal recourse for consumers.  Therefore, expect a conference committee, unless, as Wired reports today, Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans convince the House leadership to accept the the Senate version.

The New York Times weighed in with a story yesterday citing unnamed "officials " that "said it appeared that the House would ultimately be forced to accept some sort of legal protection for the phone carriers in negotiations between the two chambers this week ."   Meanwhile Infoworld reported that the Electric Frontier Foundation and others were highly critical of the Senate version and that "The EFF will push hard to have House negotiators keep the telecom immunity provisions out of the bill that goes to Bush ."  In the debate, The Captain's Quarter sides with the telecoms, while an older piece from Newsweek, allows Senator Feingold (D-WI) to explain his opposition the bill without amendments.

Another important measure before Congress will be the farm bill which has raised editorial criticism of subsidies recently.   The Environmental Working Group finds the Bush Administration’s approach more progressive than that of Congress, which has continued the subsidies sought by lobbyists.  For an example of local coverage, we've included a piece from the Des Moines Register.  We also have one from Politico.

A third  topic in the news this week is the Congressional reaction to President Bush's proposal for the FY 2009 budget. For two critiques, see the pieces by the Heritage Foundation and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

So, whether you submit new stories or review those already recommended by another member, you can help us make Newstrust  "your guide to good journalism." And be sure to check back with us here on Saturday, to see the results of our collective search for quality coverage of this topic.

Featured Topic - February 11th 2008 - Hillary Clinton

Today's featured topic is Hillary Clinton. As Senator Clinton continues her campaign for the Democratic nomination, how has the media covered her positions on key public policy issues? Help us find good journalism on this topic -- and review our recommended stories on Senator Hillary Clinton.

Recently we have taken a good look at the journalism surrounding McCain, Bush, Obama and the presidential election in general. With the Obama/Clinton race still in a dead heat, it's time to turn our attention towards Hillary Clinton. What are you looking for in articles about Hillary? Is context the most important attribute? What about accuracy?

Take the time to confront an article or two about Hillary and think about how her issues and general campaign is being portrayed. Is the media being fair and balanced?

NewsTrust Salon in San Francisco: Up, Up and Onward!

As Fabrice already noted, we had a fantastic group of journalists, academics, concerned citizens and thinkers over last Friday at our first NewsTrust Salon on good journalism. The goal of the night was to discuss "what makes good journalism?" Or more accurately - how do you find news you can trust?

We started the night off with brief introductions and answering the question: What are three news sources you trust. It was interesting to hear several people mention the Economist and the Daily Show among some of the usual suspects of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

It was Howard Rheingold who first brought up that for him, more important than what news sources he trusts is how he gets his news - which is through various RSS feeds. Others followed and I myself have to admit, Google Reader has changed the way I read the news. In future salons that might be a follow up question, since so many people are getting their news through social means like Facebook or Digg. I wonder if people trust news they get from one social media source more than others?

After the introductions Fabrice went into a power point presentation which he will slowly reveal here on this blog, one post/slide at a time - which explains all the intricacies that NewsTrust.net offers. Time and again, after people watch the presentation they often say: gosh, I didn't realize you were doing so much. Some of the features on NewsTrust are hidden - but we want to bring them to the surface and that is part of the reason why we held this salon.

Next we broke up into groups of 4-6 people to review a story together. It was through this process that those in attendance were able to get a real sense of what NewsTrust does - it forces a reader to step back and examine what they are reading and how it is presented to them. After 15-20 minutes of reviewing a story we came back to share the experience of rating a story on NewsTrust, some for the very first time.

The feedback during this part of the night was monumentally helpful in helping us figure out how we can improve NewsTrust. Some of the highlights included.

• Improving the visuals - The site is too text heavy right now.
• Creating different rate forms for different types of news stories - it's unfair to judge editorials by the same standard as news investigations.
• Making it easier to review a story.
• Taking NewsTrust.net mobile.
• Open ID

In truth, there was more feedback that can be itemized in this blog post: This is just to give you a sense of what is on our radar.

Also in attendance that night was the web editor of Mother Jones, who will host a topic in the coming weeks and lead our first NewsTrust news hunt on a specific topic of his choosing. It is just one of the ways we hope to expand the reach of NewsTrust by partnering with other news organizations.

We hope to have more salons in the future - in cities all over the country. It is a way to take the goals of NewsTrust off-line and show other people what our community is really about. We want to perfect the ebb and flow of these events, but eventually we hope to turn them into something any member of the NewsTrust community could host at their home.

Our First NewsTrust Salon on Good Journalism

We held our first NewsTrust Salon in San Francisco last Thursday, for a group discussion about quality journalism with a great group of 26 journalists, educators, technologists and community leaders from organizations like Current TV, Google, Mother Jones and Stanford University, to name just a few (see below).

I'm pleased to say this salon was a big hit for all concerned -- we had a truly stimulating conversation and learned a lot from each other (more on that here). We started this two-hour event with an opening presentation about NewsTrust, followed by small group meetings, during which each participant was asked to review an article and rate it on NewsTrust. We then gathered again as a large group, to hear people's impressions and recommendations for next steps.

The good news is that most people felt that the NewsTrust review process was effective for guiding them through a thoughtful evaluation of the article's journalistic quality. Each group that reviewed the article came up with a below average rating, due to concerns about fairness and sourcing.

Some of the questions we touched on as a group included:
* what is good journalism? how can you tell it apart from misinformation?
* how can we join forces online to share quality news with each other?
* how can we encourage more citizens to grow their news literacy skills?
* how can we improve NewsTrust.net to serve these goals?

It was great to have that large group discussion after the small group sessions, because it allowed participants to make informed recommendations for improvement. We plan to summarize these suggestions in an upcoming post -- and hopefully incorporate as many as we can in the next version of NewsTrust later this year.

In the meantime, check out some of the photos from the salon on our NewsTrust Album on Flickr, such as the ones in this post.

We think this group discussion format has great potential for helping citizens become more informed about what they get in their daily news -- either through house parties like this one, or in classroom settings in schools and universities across the nation.

To that end, we plan to host more NewsTrust Salons in coming months, starting with these dates:
* Miami - February 28
* New York - March 18
* San Francisco Bay Area - mid-April

If you are an active NewsTrust reviewer and are interested in joining (or hosting) one of these private events, please email us.

Our first NewsTrust Salon was generously hosted by our friends Terry Gamble and Peter Boyer, who are active NewsTrust reviewers and supporters. We're deeply grateful to them for so graciously opening up their home, and helping us try out this promising new service.

And we're also very grateful to our salon participants for joining us and sharing their good words of advice. They included:
* Andrew Fitzgerald - Current TV
* Ann Grimes - Stanford University
* David Pablo Cohen - Google
* Ed Bice - Meadan
* Fran Maier - TrustE
* Francis Pisani - Le Monde
* Hap Perry - GenSpring
* Howard Rheingold - Smart Mobs
* Johnny Falla - Skoll Foundation
* Kara Andrade - Maynard Institute
* Marty Krasney - Writer, Consultant
* Mary Beth Pudup - University of California
* Nick Aster - Mother Jones
* Patrice O'Neill - The Working Group
* Peter Leyden - New Politics
* Steve Katz - Mother Jones
* Tim Lundeen - Web Crossing

Salon organizers and NewsTrust staff members included:
* Terry Gamble, Peter Boyer - Ayrshire Foundation
* Fabrice Florin - Executive Director
* Rory O'Connor - Editorial Director
* David Fox - Technology Director
* Kaizar Campwala - Associate Editor   
* David Cohn - Contributing Editor
* Phyllis Florin
* Annie Fox

Thanks to all for a job well done -- and stay tuned for more!

Finding 'News You Can Trust'

Hi, Rory O’Connor here, NewsTrust Editorial Director, with the first in a series of posts intended to jumpstart a dialogue about how our community can best find and share quality news and opinions, based on core principles of journalism – the very underpinnings of what makes the NewsTrust experience so important and meaningful...

I’d like to start the conversation by discussing the issues of trust and credibility in the daily news. We live in a media-saturated era, one in which news and information from a wide range of sources is readily available to common people for the first time in history. This unparalleled information access, although clearly empowering, is also quite disruptive and presents its own unique set of issues and challenges, both to journalists and to society as a whole. Faced with this virtual tsunami of unfiltered information -- powered by a technological revolution that has democratized tools of media production and distribution, delivered by an unprecedented amalgam of beleaguered professional journalists and newly inspired amateur ‘citizen reporters,’ and distributed at the speed of light via a wide variety of both new and legacy media -- how can any of us be sure that the news we see and hear is true? Are there any journals and journalists that we can really trust and rely on? If so, how can we possibly find them amidst the clangor and the clutter of TMI –- too much information?

Increasingly, sloppy and gossipy journalism is treated as legitimate news, opinions are presented as facts, and misinformation spreads throughout both our mainstream and alternative news media --threatening the very foundation of our democracy. Numerous factors, including (but not limited to) the digital information revolution and its explosion of sometimes spurious online outlets, the consolidation of mainstream media by huge multinational entertainment conglomerates, and the concomitant spread of cable television's highly partisan and factually challenged opinions-as-news formats, contribute to this mistrust. What’s worse is that many no longer feel they can even trust the news media itself to deliver the information we need as citizens.

How then can we find credible news and information? Enter NewsTrust. By filtering content from online sources, establishing common metrics for evaluation, and accessing the "wisdom of the crowds" through social networking and “intelligent aggregation,” our free service offers one possible solution to the "News You Can Trust" conundrum. Anyone can submit stories and news sources for community consideration. Each is then researched and rated by panels of reviewers for factual evidence, fairness, sourcing, context and other basic journalistic principles. To read more about the principles we collectively evaluate at NewsTrust, check our Quick Review Tips:
http://www.newstrust.net/help/faq_quick_review.htm

Some reviewers are practicing journalists, others students -- but most are simply "ordinary citizens" seeking trustworthy information. An important part of our mission is to help citizens grow their news literacy skills, and make more informed decisions about democracy, across party lines. The results so far are encouraging. Our research suggests that "amateur'" citizen reviewers using the site's unique review tools are able to evaluate news quality reliably, as shown in this report:
http://www.newstrust.net/survey/report.htm

But we don't claim to have all the answers, and look forward to improving our review process with your help. We encourage you to weigh in here with comments, criticisms, observations, and recommendations. Remember – if you don’t trust the news; rate some of your own!

Featured Topic - February 6th, 2008 - Presidential Elections

Our featured topic this week is the U.S. Presidential Election. Americans are voting in record numbers during this primary season, and we're sorting through an unusually high volume of information and speculation from media and politicians. Help us find good journalism on this topic -- and review our recommended stories on the U.S. Presidential Election.

The entire world took note of the U.S. primaries last night, as did news organizations from around the country. Many wrote articles about the identity politics that seemed to play out during the voting process.

Take Slate's "Obama's breakthrough among whites " which received some moderate rankings, or the American Prospect's "The FundamentaList."

While a clear winner hasn't been announced, it's only natural for momentum to start swinging for different candidates. But the press' role isn't to decide where that momentum is, but to report on what they perceive. In the past pundits have been blamed for calling elections too early and effectively changing the outcome. That's not good journalism - so let's keep our eyes out and our minds open. Together we can find quality content about a most important topic, our presidential election.

Welcome our new partners: Link TV and Mother Jones

We're pleased to welcome two new partners to the NewsTrust network: Link TV and Mother Jones, who just added NewsTrust buttons on their sites. In coming weeks, we will feature some of their best work, based on your reviews -- and we will invite their members to join forces with us to find quality journalism online.

They join other distinguished NewsTrust partners such as Alternet, InstaPundit and Slate's Doonesbury.com, who have either added our buttons or news widgets on their sites, or invited their members to participate in our collective search for good journalism online.

We expect to announce a number of new partners this spring, and welcome other organizations to join us our network, from across party lines. Whether you're a news provider, a journalism school or an independent blogger, NewsTrust can support your work in more ways than one. Most of what you see on NewsTrust can be added to your site and customized to fit your needs.

For example, adding our review buttons on your site can help promote your best work and get civil, reasoned feedback from our reviewers -- based on journalistic quality, not just popularity. You might also like to add our news widgets on your site, which can extend your news content with other related stories from trusted sources.

All in all, partnering with NewsTrust is a great opportunity to engage your community to find good journalism on topics that matter to you, as well as help your readers get better informed as citizens.

To find out more, check our partners page or our fact sheet on NewsTrust Partner Services.

Featured Topic - February 4th 2008 - Presidential Election

Our featured topic today is the U.S. Presidential Election. As Super Tuesday looms closer, there is potential for really good or bad journalism on this important topic -- and we'd like your help to sort it out. In the next few days, please submit or review quality news and opinions about the Presidential Election 2008  -- and check our blog on Wednesday to see the results of our collective search.

With the Super Bowl out of the way, there is still one more "super" day left on everyone's calender. In less than 24-hours both parties will have effectively chosen their next presidential ticket. The races are close on both sides and the journalism that is being produced is picking apart all campaigns from every angle.

One moment that has come up time and again in the media was the recent Clinton/Obama debate. At NewsTrust we found one article by FactCheck.org "LA Love Fest" that has merited some thoughtful reviews. Since the entire campaign hasn't been an all-out 'hug-o-war,' that the two seemed so friendly during what was presumably the most watched debate of the political season, was worth taking note.

That is just one moment in what has been over a year in the coming for both parties. This weekend it seemed I couldn't go anywhere without friendly conversation turning to the election. While I couldn't be happier to hear people, especially young people, enthralled by politics and who our next president would be, my concern is that voters are informed when they make decisions about who to vote for. NewsTrust is one of many sources to do just that.

As we take a look at the deluge of content surrounding the election, we should take a moment to check our politics at the door when we start reviewing. I know first hand how hard that can be, but that's just another way that NewsTrust helps us find quality journalism. It teaches us how to see the forest for the trees and recognize when we are judging articles positively because we agree with a slant it might put forward or because it informs and engages us.

With that in mind - check out the stories that are up for review on the 2008 election. If you aren't sure who you want to vote for, click on the tab marked "Top Rated" and get informed.

A Look Back at McCain Stories

On Wednesday we asked you to help us find the best journalism surrounding Senator McCain. Now it's time to take a look back at the results.

Of interest in this featured topic was the blog post "So where does McCain stand on the issues?" from The Writing Corner.

This blog post was rated just a tenth of a point below the Associated Press story on Rudy Guiliani endorsing Senator McCain for president. While it might be comparing apples and oranges, since the two articles in question are tackling different topics, it is interesting to note that a blog post can have the same trust rating as a piece from the Associated Press.

In fact, the blog post went through more scrutiny (was rated on more rubric) than the AP article - but still ended up with the same general trust level. This demonstrates the kind of playing field we want at NewsTrust. We rate content on the content itself.