NewsTrust as an Online Tool

Recently, I attended a presentation by Mike Labonte, one of several editors for NewsTrust.net, an online network of news stories dedicated to allowing people to submit original reviews of articles. This results in the ranking of pieces based on the most and least trusted articles. People can also submit stories to the site freely.

I think this is a great tool for people who want to find new sources of news and/or websites to follow. It may be harder to discover a new website with content you can trust and appreciate than to simply find out what everyone thinks about it on NewsTrust. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like too useful of a tool for those who already know which sources they do and do not trust. For example, if someone already doesn’t trust the Boston Globe for its content, reading a few glowing reviews likely won’t change his or her mind.

I posted three reviews today on NewsTrust; the first one was for a nice piece on internet bullying by Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times. I thought the piece was very well-written and well-sourced, and managed to obtain a few quotes from the kids themselves, which I thought was very important to the piece.

My second review was for a TechCrunch article on the initial reviews for the Apple iPad. I felt the review was fine for what it was, but could have been better had they waited a few more days to give us a better idea of how the general public feels about the new device, as well as the consensus from reviewers rather than a small sampling.

My third review was for a Boston Globe opinion piece by Alex Beam on Twitter, and why he doesn’t do it. Beam comes off as an old man who is behind on the times and probably thought television was the death of news. His reasoning for not “tweeting” doesn’t do much more than dip a toe into the waters of the site and its myriad possibilities. He complains about low-rent politicians and celebrities updating us on their lives, and conveniently side-steps the advantages Twitter could provide him. But it seems more as if he’s oblivious to them rather than ignoring them.

I believe I will keep using NewsTrust in the future. I would like to see more arts & entertainment-related stories posted to the site; it is very much geared toward U.S. and World issues, as well as general politics. It would be interesting to see how music and movie reviews get rated compared to each other, and it may help me find new reviews to possibly trust in the future.