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by Paul Bass | Jun 29, 2006 2:18 pm

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Posted to: Media/ Books

Thursday, June 29

12:25 p.m.

That could be a good thing. The “media giraffe” in the top photo threw out the idea during a discussion on how to keep the news honest and trustworthy in the new age.

Last night I met an Apple Computer refugee who’s testing out a new approach to telling readers what news they can trust amid the ocean of information now available on the web. Fabrice Florin’s his name; his emerging site is NewsTrust. It enlisted journalists and citizens alike to rate articles from mainstream news sites and blogs on their accuracy and fairness. He previewed it Thursday to a room full of reporters, editors, bloggers, netreporters and academics at the “Media Giraffe” gathering at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Click here to read more about Florin and his project.) He reported that, contrary to what you might think, liberals and conservatives tend to move away from their biases in judging the accuracy of stories they’re asked to rate; the trick is they need to be asked more questions than simply, “Is this good journalism?” The more questions Florin’s group asked the raters, they more the raters came to similar consensus opinions, regardless of their biases. (This reminded me of the Deliberative Democracy project taking place in New Haven.) Florin’s also finding that professional journalists and everyday citizens tend to reach the same conclusions. So much for “expertise”!

Panelists and people in the audience offered critiques of the site, and expressed some worries. Will people post fast enough to make a difference in helping people figure out which sources to trust on a breaking story? (Answer: The value here will be in “aggregate” reviews over time that let you know which news sites and blogs are the most trustworthy over time.) Will there be a critical mass of quality reviewers? What about tampering by axe-grinders looking to hijack the site? Despite these reservations, the consensus was that this is an experiment worth pursuing; as with the web in general, the very real dangers are outweighed by the infite possibilities for citizen participation in and control of information.

(New Haven Alderwoman Babz Rawls-Ivy offered her own take on Florin’s experiment in a comment posted at the bottom of this item; add your own.)

Right before the panel broke up for lunch, an audience member offered what I think was the best new suggestion of the day. The suggestion came from David Beers (pictured at the top of this item), founding editor of a top-notch daily online newspaper published in British Columbia. Rather than have experts investigate what sources a reporter relied on for a story, why not have the reporter simply list all sources as a matter of course, at the end of every story?

“Isn’t this what cereal companies do? Put the ingredients on the box?” Beers asked. Sounds good to me. Let’s see… will corn syrup rank highest on our lists of ingredients, too? Or fiber?

What do you think of Beers’ idea? Post your comment below.

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