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NewsTrust
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
NewsTrust.net is a free online social news network that helps people find and share good journalism. Members rate articles based on core journalistic principles such as evidence, fairness and context, and discuss their findings with others.
URL:
http://beta.newstrust.net/
City:
Mill Valley
State/Region:
CA
Country:
USA
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
In recent years, the consolidation of mainstream media, combined with the rise of opinion news and the explosion of new media outlets, have created a serious problem for democracy: many people feel they can no longer trust the news media to deliver the information they need as citizens.
To address this critical issue, NewsTrust is developing an online news rating service to help people identify quality journalism - or "news you can trust." Our members rate the news online, based on journalistic quality, not just popularity. Our beta website and news feed feature the best and the worst news of the day, picked from hundreds of alternative and mainstream news sources.
This non-profit community effort tracks news media nationwide and helps
citizens make informed decisions about democracy. Submitted stories and news sources are carefully researched and rated for balance, fairness, evidence, and other criteria, by panels of citizen reviewers, students and journalists. Their collective ratings, reviews and tags are then featured in our news feed, for online distribution by our members and partners.
For a visual overview of our project, check our site or download these slides (PDF, PowerPoint).
This initiative is rapidly gaining momentum with concerned citizens, journalists and educators. Our research studies suggest that citizen reviewers using our review tools can evaluate news quality reliably - and as effectively as experienced journalists.
Sustainability (financial) model:
NewsTrust is led by Fabrice Florin, a former journalist and a digital media pioneer at Apple and Macromedia. Our experienced management team includes award-winning journalist and media executive Rory O’Connor and former Lucasfilm product manager David Fox, who bring extensive track records in content and technology development. Our advisors include Dan Gillmor, Howard Rheingold and other digital media innovators from organizations like Google, Harvard, Poynter, Stanford and others.
NewsTrust launched a beta web site in November 2006. We’ve grown steadily in our first 4 months, mostly through word-of-mouth. We average 110,046 page views per month, with 11,128 unique monthly visitors. As of March 25, we have 3,804 registered members, 1,260 reviewers and 102 hosts. About 3,000 members receive our daily and weekly email newsletters, and thousands more subscribe to our RSS feeds.
Sustained mainly since 2005 out of the pockets of its founder, several institutions and individual sponsors have begun to provide financial support.
Potential obstacles:
NewsTrust hopes to sustain its nonprofit model, but has also been evaluating commercial models.
Resource Needs:
Volunteer reviewers, subject experts, fundraisers, web developers.
Key Milestones:
Founded 2005. Beta 11/2006. Full launch 2007.
Project Summary:
NewsTrust.net is an online social news network that helps people find good journalism, so they can make informed decisions as citizens. Our free Web site features a daily feed of quality news and opinions from independent and mainstream sources, based on ratings from our reviewers. NewsTrust members rate articles based on core journalistic principles such as accuracy, fairness and context, using our online review tools. We also track the reputation of news sources and rate our own reviewers.
Comments
Press Reviews
Deeper than Digg
"The site is looking to judge news articles online by quality, rather than simple popularity, with a more finely grained evaluation of news stories than one gets from the gladiatorial thumbs-up, thumbs-down votes by which stories live and die on Digg. (...) NewsTrust, in essence, aims to counter the fascination of the inclusive crowd -- picture Britney Spears on a Linux-based iPod sold by Microsoft -- with the wisdom of the vetted crowd." - InformationWeek - Thomas Claburn
'Next generation' news site
"By building up an archive of ratings and recommendations over time, Newstrust will provide an increasingly comprehensive database of credibility for individual publications and even individual journalists." - The Guardian - Jemima Kiss
Policing the press
"NewsTrust aims to spotlight excellence. ... It hopes to support itself by offering media outlets its rating service, which would enable readers and viewers to rate stories based on criteria such as fairness, objectivity, factual evidence, clarity and relative importance." - The Baltimore Sun - Nick Madigan
Web news opposites
"NewsTrust's more thoughtful approach can yield dramatically different top stories. On Tuesday, NewsTrust's users selected "Top Ten Myths About Iraq 2006," from a blog written by Juan Cole, president of the Global Americana Institute. Digg's top story was "50 Reasons -- why it's great to be a Guy!!" from a blog written by someone named Mike in Los Angeles." - San Jose Mercury News - Elise Ackerman
Citizens keep watch on the quality of journalism
"Rating with multiple criteria has a curious effect: at first, you're encouraged to read the article more carefully. And when it's time to rate the article, you feel an irresistible need to take a second look at certain sections, to make sure that your verdict will be correct. This invites a more attentive and critical review, making us better readers. And this is one of NewsTrust's central objectives." - Le Monde - Transnets - Francis Pisani
NewsTrust is cool
"It is cool because it will help me find things I might not otherwise find. It is cool because it might help improve the quality of journalism. It is cool because it is a worthwhile application of the power of social media, not a silly application thereof." - Philanthropy 2173 - Lucy Bernholz
An interesting experiment
"When I first wrote about NewsTrust, an online news rating service, I wasn't sure about how well a rating system for stories would work given the subjectivity about what's good journalism and the potential to game results, as we've seen with Digg and other sites. I'm still not sure, but now the world can check it out, in beta at least. This will be an interesting experiment to watch." - Business Week - Rob Hof
Best, not most popular
"Ever notice how the "most popular" news stories are more News of the Weird and New York Times material? NewsTrust is a user rated journalism site that focuses on bringing the "best" articles to the top rather than the most "popular"." - Tactical Philanthropy - Sean Stannard-Stockton
Read other reviews here
Member Testimonials
"The potential of this approach is terrific: community involvement in understanding how well journalists -- including bloggers -- do at their jobs (whether it's a professional or amateur activity or something in between). Clearly, this is an early iteration. But the promise is clear. Join up and help out." - Dan Gillmor - NewsTrust Advisor - San Francisco, CA
"Newstrust addresses in a nonpartisan way the dearth of thoughtful discourse in this country by presenting a model of "citizen journalism" that can be easily accessed, utilized and scaled up by its participants in the way that Amazon, eBay and Craigslist have been. As a parent and a citizen of this country, I am longing for ways to educate our children and each other to discern fact from fiction, truth from "truthiness"." - Terry Gamble - Director, Ayrshire Foundation
"NewsTrust is an excellent tool for finding reliable sources and sharpening my own analytical skills. The review process helps me evaluate content and quality more effectively, see beyond my own opinions, and become better informed about vital issues." - Marsha Iverson - NewsTrust Host, Founding Member - Seattle, WA
"I started using NewsTrust early on, in an effort to find those news stories that were better than average. I've found many great stories this way. As I've gotten more involved, I've started reviewing and submitting stories myself. It has caused me to stop, think and learn more about what makes for better journalism. With this, I've come to better appreciate some news sources that I've not always favored, as I've come to see some of their better journalism." - Aldon Hynes - NewsTrust Host, Founding Member - Stamford, CT
Read other testimonials
Your exploration of "commercial" models of sustainability
Sandra Dickinson
Your proposal indicates that you wish to sustain your nonprofit model, but that you are exploring "commercial" models of sustainability.
Can you tell us more about the commercial models you are exploring?
MOST nonprofits are pursuing earned income strategies to support their charitable missions -- including many of the projects proposed for the Technology Innovation Fund here. I'm certainly convinced that - in this forum - we have an unprecedented opportunity to help each take steps in that direction. The more we tell each other about what we have in mind, the better we can help each other do it. Heck - you could even use this forum as a market research opportunity -- ask the other project applicants the questions I posed above? Aren't we all in this together?
My own project Selearninggames is dedicated to improving profitability for nonprofit earned income ventures. Your comments and feedback on my proposal would be so on target and so welcome.
re Your exploration of "commercial" models of sustainability
Hi Sandra - in response to your questions:
Though we are non-profit and initially funded through donations, we plan to run the venture as a sustainable business, and to generate revenue in the online market to support this project.
Revenue streams for NewsTrust include online advertising, premium memberships, and license or service fees from our partners.
For online advertising revenue, sponsors will pay for sponsored links and ads on our site, through third-party ad networks like Google AdSense or Federated Media.
For premium memberships, consumers will pay monthly or yearly subscription fees for access to special services such as personalized news, publishing tools and pre-paid content.
Once we have established ourselves as a reliable news filter for consumers and as an advertising vehicle for sponsors, we aim to provide business services to news providers and other enterprises interested in custom applications of our trust network solution.
These business services may include:
In the online advertising market, we are aiming for conservative CPM rates of $2 to $3 per thousand impressions.
For premium memberships, we're considering a yearly membership fees of $10-30/year.
Business license and service fees will vary with customer volume and scope of services.
We expect to be sustainable by the end of 2009, assuming we can raise sufficient funding through foundation grants and private donations. We will use that funding to launch our full service, growing our community through business partnerships in the next few years.
We're considering forming a for-profit subsidiary to secure investment capital for the development of NewsTrust's technology infrastructure for online trust networks, and to manage its commercial exploitation in content areas other than news and online journalism (e.g. finance, health).
However, we most likely would not form such a subsidiary until our primary non-profit service is fully funded and well underway.