With all the social news sites out there do we really need another one? Don’t answer that question yet. What if there was a site that was different than Digg and Reddit? A site that did not rank stories based on popularity but on journalistic standards.
On their Web site under their lengthy FAQ section it reads,” Our members rate the news online, based on journalistic quality, rather than popularity or ideology.” That sounds like an ambitious goal for a start up social news site. They plan to have a full launch in mid-2007 as they are currently in an early beta stage.
Their rating system is based on one to five stars. A reader can rank an article as being one star for lowest quality article and five stars for the highest quality article. Within the ratings there are several categories to rank articles. Some of them are balance, accuracy, context and fairness. All categories contain the same one to five star ratings.
Founder Fabrice Florin said the new site would not be a vendetta against the media. Florin said,” 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”.
One other interesting feature is that not only are articles reviewed but the reviewers of the article as well. Users will be required to give details of who they are including political affiliation. This is designed to hold the reviewer as accountable as the journalist who writes an article.
Will NewsTrust make a big splash on the social news scene or will they be just another shooting star in the dynamic landscape of the online world? I think the readers will be the ones to have the final say.
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Mike is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
