Florin, who has spent 25 years in new media entrepreneurship including stints at companies like Macromedia and Apple, is a fan of social news. He thinks that sites like digg are “the right step in the right direction,” but that they’re “still hindered by the popularity rating.” He points to the world news section on digg, calling it a “hodgepodge” and noting that many of the stories have even been reported as inaccurate by digg members: “What they’re getting is more of a mob mentality than a careful evaluation. It’s more of an impulse thing,” said Florin.

TRUSTING NEWS

In creating NewsTrust, Florin hopes to curb these inaccuracies and the misinformation that he feels slips by editors at traditional news orgs and at new media publications usually staffed by less experienced journalists. For Florin, “This is important because everyday people base their opinions on journalism.”   

Finding a means of ranking news based on standards of journalistic quality such as fairness, balance and factual evidence was not an easy process. First, NewsTrust’s founders and advisors (see list here) scoured the code of ethics of the world’s top news organizations, finding the common points and boiling them down to some key themes from which they formed questions.

Next, they put the questions to test. To their 1,000 volunteer members, NewsTrust sent out two different versions of the same story; one the original, one filled with “careful inaccuracies” such as removed facts, introduced bias and the replacement of real names with anonymous sources. After several tests such as these, the social news reformers were able to determine which questions were answered most often, which were most relevant and were able to identify how the rating tool reached conclusions. Through this research, they were able to whittle the number of questions for the NewsTrust article rating system down to 6.

RATING USERS

To further reassure readers of the quality of the rating system, NewsTrust provides a second tier or measurement, integrating a “meta-review” system that rates the reviewers. “Not only do we rate journalism or journalists,” said Florin, “we want to hold our reviewers to the same standards that we do professionals.” Before their first vote, each aspiring NewsTrust member fills out a form describing themself including such details as political orientation. This helps other users to understand who the reviewer is, different from other sites whose users can remain anonymous if they’d like. Reviewers then receive a member level: the higher the number of a reviewer’s level, the more weight is put on her vote. Several characteristics are considered when determining the importance placed on a reviewer’s vote including; the frequency in which they visit the site, their professional experience (journalistic experience a plus!), ratings by other members, transparency (how much reviewers are willing to divulge about themselves) and validation of reviewers by NewsTrust staff.

RATING SOURCES

On top of rating articles and individual NewsTrust participants, NewsTrust will gradually form overall ratings on news organizations. Florin admits that NewsTrust will not be 100% failsafe for erroneous stories; “everyday citizens don’t always have the resources to factcheck the press like that.” For example, it probably wouldn’t immediately catch the misinformation such as that presented to the public during the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in the run-up to the War in Iraq. “But,” said Florin, “We’ll be able to go back and figure out where errors were revealed.”

For instance, if it turns out that a newspaper consistently neglects to provide balanced opinions and their facts don’t always turn out to be correct, the paper will receive a low rating and just the opposite if its investigation is right on. The source rating is also useful if an article is posted but has not yet been rated; the source rating gives readers a better idea about how much to trust the article they are reading.   

CONSEQUENCES FOR TRADITIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Florin made it clear that NewsTrust is not “on a vendetta against the media.” With the Internet, he feels that the job of journalists has become a lot harder because there is so much information available at everyone’s fingertips. But journalists can leverage the power of their readers who can be directly heard online: “We want citizens to help out because they can help out.”

“Our hope is that the mainstream media will work with us, that we can help them and that they’ll use our review tools within their own staff,” said Florin. He revealed that several major American newspapers have approached NewsTrust “asking us to put our ratings at the end of their articles.” Like other social media buttons now prevalent on newspaper websites, publications will also be able to add a NewsTrust box where the reader can immediately rate the article and submit it to NewsTrust. The start-up social news site will also provide a feed of the latest quality news to subscribers which it hopes will direct traffic back to news organizations.

Considering its quest for quality and the following it has already gathered even before its launch, NewsTrust will be a social news site to watch. In the end, all social news sites will play a role. But where many users might visit sites like digg for a look at the random news listed or for entertainment purposes, NewsTrust users will likely be those who want to see the mainstream press perform its role as a watchdog for democracy the best it can.