Credibility
Remember my article in late May about political websites, and how it can be challenging to gather credible news on the Internet?
I guess I wasn't alone in that complaint: welcome NewsCred, a new website whose mission is to aggregate news in a responsible fashion, ostensibly presenting the most credible version of major news stories, all gathered from a wide range of sources.
NewsCred doesn't just aggregate the news, it also allows you to personalize your news experience, selecting from a variety of sources, including many international sources (Reuters and The Economist, natch), The New York Times, The L.A. Times, MSNBC, the BBC, Fox, Slate, Salon... well, you get the idea. I was a little disappointed that The New Republic was offered but not its counterpart National Review.
In addition, you can vote to help establish which articles, journalists and news sources are considered credible, and which not. (Not that vox populi is necessarily a good judge. The once-popular Digg.com, for example, has become significantly less so, at least in terms of its hard news stories, because of a decided political agenda as to which articles are Dug up or down.) A nice graph view of credibility trends tells you how your favorite newspaper, blogs, and authors are tracking with NewsCred users in general.
You will have to create an account to get access to all the features, but without an account, you can still read the news as aggregated by NewsCred.
Call me crazy, but much as I like the idea of a solid news aggregator, there is something slightly sinister about users deciding if a story has "credibility." There is just too much temptation to discredit a story with which you disagree philosophically. Truth isn't always what you want it to be. Did they vote on the news in Paddy Chayefsky's iconic movie Network?
Oh, brave new world.
I guess I wasn't alone in that complaint: welcome NewsCred, a new website whose mission is to aggregate news in a responsible fashion, ostensibly presenting the most credible version of major news stories, all gathered from a wide range of sources.
NewsCred doesn't just aggregate the news, it also allows you to personalize your news experience, selecting from a variety of sources, including many international sources (Reuters and The Economist, natch), The New York Times, The L.A. Times, MSNBC, the BBC, Fox, Slate, Salon... well, you get the idea. I was a little disappointed that The New Republic was offered but not its counterpart National Review.
In addition, you can vote to help establish which articles, journalists and news sources are considered credible, and which not. (Not that vox populi is necessarily a good judge. The once-popular Digg.com, for example, has become significantly less so, at least in terms of its hard news stories, because of a decided political agenda as to which articles are Dug up or down.) A nice graph view of credibility trends tells you how your favorite newspaper, blogs, and authors are tracking with NewsCred users in general.
You will have to create an account to get access to all the features, but without an account, you can still read the news as aggregated by NewsCred.
Call me crazy, but much as I like the idea of a solid news aggregator, there is something slightly sinister about users deciding if a story has "credibility." There is just too much temptation to discredit a story with which you disagree philosophically. Truth isn't always what you want it to be. Did they vote on the news in Paddy Chayefsky's iconic movie Network?
Oh, brave new world.
Comments
We look forward to more of your feedback!
Cheers,
Shafqat
CEO NewsCred