NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

Charity or collaboration?

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Buzzmachine - By Jeff Jarvis - Jul. 22 (Opinion) - The New York Times has accepted free stories from ProPublica. It has endorsed a journalist getting help from the public via Spot.US to underwrite a story that might appear at NYTimes.com. And Poynter’s Bill Mitchell says the paper is even wondering about foundation support for its work (but for perspective, I suspect one could safely

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

APIs: The new distribution

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Buzzmachine - By Jeff Jarvis - Mar. 10 (Comment) - The Guardian just announced that it is releasing all its content through an API as well as making available many different data sets through a data store, all of which can be mashed up into others’ sites and applications.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Credibility is not binary

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Buzzmachine - By Jeff Jarvis - May. 14 (Opinion) - I've seen a couple of efforts lately to help determine who's credible online and though I understand the need and the motive, these attempts are fundamentally flawed and perhaps even more damaging than they are helpful. The latest is Newscred and Techcrunch describes it today. I used a Techcrunch beta invite to poke around. It's very simple -- though that's the problem; credibility isn't so simple. They list articles and you get to "credit" or "discredit" them. These scores are, in turn, compiled for writers and publications. The first and most obvious problem, which TechCrunch points out, is that this is bait for grudges. Fox from one side, the Times from the other will get discredited by their detractors all day long. One man's bias is often the other man's truth. The second and more fundamental problem is that there's no basis to decide credibility. Does one error ruin an article's credibility? How many discredits does it take to ruin a reporter's or a publication's? And then what does that mean? That they lied? That you don't believe them? That you don't like them? That they make mistakes? That they don't report enough? That they use anonymous sources? That they relied on bad sources? That they wrote it badly? That they weren't transparent? And who's doing the judging? Are they credible? Who's judging the judges, then? Over the years, I've heard of various attempts to determine credibility or bias algorithmically, in an effort to take out this human bias in the process of finding bias, but that's just an engineer's wet dream. Again, the problem is definition (not to mention technical limitations of analyzing text and ideas). Newstrust has tried to do this in a subtler way, with star ratings and comment, but it faces the same issues: Who's doing the rating? On what basis?

NewsTrust Rating: 2.6 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The CBS interview

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 09:14:02 -0700

Buzzmachine - Apr. 21 (Interview) - [Note the video submitted for review was posted today - the story quote is from the 4/20/07 blog and are provided for context] Last week, I did an interview for the CBS Evening News about the online civility discussion. It didn't make it to air (after my Free Speech segment also did not see the light of video, I'm getting a complex). So now it's an online exclusive, an Eye to Eye segment intro-ed by Katie herself. You can watch it here. Given CBS' new video-everywhere deals, I think I'll soon be able to embed such a segment. But now I can only link to it. The taping of the segment was both funny and emblematic of how big TV works. I did the whole interview looking at the camera in Washington while Daniel Sieberg asked the questions in New York. But after we finished it all, they realized they'd set up the shot wrong -- "wrong" being a relative term, relevant to the orthodoxy of old TV. I was looking straight at the camera but Daniel was looking to the side, as if we were in the same room with bookshelves behind each of us. That's how they often make such interviews. But we were now now in visual syn

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

YouTube is good for TV

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 12:34:33 -0800

Buzzmachine - By Jeff Jarvis - Feb. 20 (Opinion) - The days of doing business by telling customers what they cannot do are nearing an end. If your customers want to watch your shows, listen to your songs, read your news, or play your games, can you still get away with telling them they cannot unless they come to you and use your devices, pay your fees, and follow your rules? That could work in a scarcity economy in which you owned all the stuff and the means to get it. But no more. Business isn't about control any more.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Size doesn't matter: The distributed media economy

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 18:37:10 -0800

Buzzmachine - By Jeff Jarvis - Dec. 27 (Opinion) - No, size does not matter, not in media, not anymore. I know that's counterintuitive and counter everything we've assumed about mass media. But today what matters is reaching the right people by the right means. That has always been the case. Only now, thanks to connected, collaborative media, it's finally possible. I'll pull together a lot of links around this topic below. But most of them are still trying to measure mass: the new pageview, the new audience count, the new click. I say the change we're facing is much bigger than just the obsolescence of the pageview, much more fundamental: Size doesn't matter. Relevance, credibility, and attraction do. Instead of measuring quantity, we have to measure quality. And only when we do that will the true value of these new media be unlocked for everyone.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer