Today we're happy to announce that Omidyar Network (ON) has awarded a $100,000 grant to NewsTrust, to help people distinguish fact from fiction in news reporting.
We're very grateful for this opportunity to get people more informed and engaged in democracy using our tools. Omidyar Network’s funding will enable us to expand our social news platform, test five new programs and form new partnerships.
Over the next six months, we'll experiment with new ways to find good and bad journalism online -- creating special tools to help you filter the news, evaluate information quality and share trusted content with others.
Check out the press release on the Omidyar Network site, and this great quote about why they invested in NewsTrust:
"Omidyar Network is excited about NewsTrust’s mission as well as its innovative use of technology to create a community of engaged news readers," said Stacy Donohue, Director, Investments, Omidyar Network. "Discerning trustworthy information sources is critical to improving our political process and our government. NewsTrust is providing novel ways for people to participate in the news process while also enabling greater transparency in reporting."
Throughout the spring, we will run five pilots testing different tools and techniques that citizens can use to tell fact from fiction. Pilot programs under development include:
• MyNews – a personal news-filtering tool;
• Local News Hunt – rating the news on a local topic;
• Global News Hunt – rating the news on an international topic;
• TrustNetworks – group pages for our members and partners; and,
• TruthSquad – a community fact-checking service.
In coming weeks, we will blog more about these pilots, two of which will start later this month. If any of you would like to join our beta for MyNews, or participate in our Local News Hunt in New York City at the end of this month, please email us.
This generous support from Omidyar Network means a lot to us, as it comes from a highly selective leader in philanthropic investments, with a special focus on social media, marketplaces and government transparency.
We would like to thank the many people at Omidyar Network who helped make this grant possible. Special recognition goes to ON’s Stacy Donohue, who spearheaded the effort and Matt Halprin and Todor Tashev, who gave us invaluable advice about growing our citizen initiative.
Last but not least, our heartfelt thanks to Pierre and Pam Omidyar, whose vision and commitment to social change are an inspiration to us all.
We're deeply honored by this vote of confidence and look forward to learning from Omidyar Network and innovating together in coming months.
Stay tuned for more about this exciting project!
Fabrice Florin
Executive Director,
NewsTrust Communications
Way to go, NT!
Posted by: Jon Mitchell | March 02, 2010 at 11:10 AM