Thoughts on NewsTrust

Yesterday in my Reinventing the News class, we were introduced to NewsTrust, a social networking Web site that allows users to rate, critique and add to stories published in the mainstream media.

While I generally am not in favor of sites that emphasize rating stories because they often drag up the ridiculously insane or fanatic celebrity stories rather than the more important issues of the day, this site seems to have avoided that pitfall. While some of the highest rated stories are not necessarily the most important of the day, they at least delve into substantive issues or cover important events rather than a young, egotistical celebrity getting drunk or having a baby.

I also appreciate the depth with which one can evaluate the stories. This includes fairness, context, evidence, balance and several other factors. This forces reviewers to think much harder about the quality of journalism contained in the article being reviewed rather than simply whether they liked the piece. I think this element attracts an audience that is interested in or has practiced journalism and truly cares about highlighting quality stories.

The daily e-mails sent to registered users are another great feature. They provide a general topic that NewsTrust will focus on for the week and offer links to some of the higher rated stories that day. The topic concept is a great idea since users can go out and search their favorite news sources for stories on the topic, then comment and review it on NewsTrust.

That said, there are still some issues with the site. First, as it is including essentially the entire world, there are some major gaps. For example, if one looks only at Boston Globe articles, there are only a few each week although there is certainly more quality stories published by that newspaper. This is probably because the site is relatively new and, therefore, does not have a comprehensive membership yet.

Additionally, I am not a fan of divulging much information online, so I am somewhat turned away by the fact that one’s ratings count more as they are more transparent. But, I realize the benefit is that it creates a more meaningful discussion of the news. Overall, this is one of the better news aggregation/social networking sites I have seen this semester and one I could see myself using occasionally.