NewsTrust - Blog Archive

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 editors 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 1/06/2010

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.