I like a little bit of spin. A little bit of attitude and point of view make stories much easier and more entertaining to read--as long as the writer is transparent about it. So, I disagree with SpinSpotter's mission to rid the media of all spin, or bias or point of view (or FUN) in any story. Newstrust, on the other hand, has the same goal as SpinSpotter but approaches it in less pervasive ways. It allows users to rate content as opposed to highlighting "spin" on a webpage.
Admittedly, SpinSpotter.com is beta ("very beta," according to the site) so I'm a little weary to make so many critiques. It doesn't have that many users yet either, so its full potential can't be seen at this moment in time. SpinSpotter only caters to Firefox users (again, at this time), and as an avid Internet Explorer-er and occasional Google Chrome-er, I was annoyed I had to download Firefox just for the program. Step One of.... many.
The idea behind SpinSpotter and NewsTrust stems from the theory that the press is the keeper of a healthy democracy. In SpinSpotter founder Todd Herman's open letter Herman says:
"I subscribe to the idea that free democracies and freedom of the press are mutually dependent. If the people no longer trust that Free Press--as is now the case for the majority of Americans--what happens to a Free Democracy? We cannot have real honest debates on important issues until we can agree on a set of facts. A free and trusted press is key to that."
Fair enough, I'm in total agreement. But who patrols the press? Especially when the press adheres to groupthink mentality as Herman states later in the letter? The viewers, the readers and the citizens in a democracy should patrol the press. Thus, a tool like SpinSpotter is genius. But it hasn't gained enough momentum to make a difference yet. For now, NewsTrust is SpinSpotter's sophisticated older brother.
Back to the software. Part of the problem is that users have to highlight the "spin" in a story. And if you visit a page that hasn't been rated, then you have to do it yourself. That means the user has to separately select and look for spin in every individual sentence. Every. Individual. Sentence. There is no way to jump within the selected sentence/paragraph/story once you're in the software on the page. Time consuming? Check. Maybe there is a simpler way but a technologically inept person like me can't find it easily enough. Frustrating? Check.
Then there are the predetermined categories of Spin: lack of balance, reporter's voice, passive voice, biased source, disregarded context and selective disclosure. Each of these is totally subjective obviously. The software finds them in the selected paragraph and the user says why the selected text is a spin. This could be fun for a few minutes, then it gets obnoxious.
All users have to be objective if this software is going to work and one person's definition of subjective material can vary from the next person's definition. I commend the effort to be objective because the flooding of the web with bad journalism needs to be monitored. However, SpinSpotter doesn't seem to go after one media outlet but has a mission to exterminate spin in all media, legacy and citizen alike. But it doesn't have enough users yet. So, installing the software for a test run for the purposes of this post was futile. I didn't find one scrap of spin unless I spotted it myself and maybe I don't want to thrust myself into the forefront of the Spin-hunt. Again, I commend the effort and interactivity SpinSpotter promotes and I think it's a great tool for people who are objective and unbiased but the site still hasn't reached its full potential.
Final grade: C. Needs improvement.
On the other hand, there is NewsTrust.net, "Your Guide to Good Journalism." NewsTrust users rate the news on quality, not just just popularity. Quality, again, is subjective but there are enough users on NewsTrust to balance the curve.
I was immediately drawn to it more because it is more professional than SpinSpotter and MUCH easier to use. And it is a guide, not the self-proclaimed savior of objectivity and force of transparency that SpinSpotter claims to be. Also, it is not as overtly interactive as SpinSpotter. So people like me, who like to check out what other people consider good (quality) news, can participate as much or as little as we like.
I like the streamlined look and topic tabs. NewsTrust filters by content, which makes it even easier to select a single topic and read a handful of the day's articles about that topic from one page. It helps users find what they're looking for ranging from broad issues like global warming and wellness to region specific news from Egypt and North Korea. It's organized, easy to use, doesn't require signing up (unless you want to rate an item yourself), doesn't adhere to any one person's standards and I like it.
The main problem I see with NewsTrust, as is the problem with SpinSpotter, is that it relies on its users to be objective and rate accordingly. Any user can go in and rate some cockamamie articles for kicks and screw up the whole system.
Final grade: A. It's made a believer out of me.
This post brought to you in part by Spin. Without it, every critic would be unemployed.
Photos: NewsTrust logo, www.NewsTrust.net; SpinSpotter logo, www.SpinSpotter.com; Print Screen of SpinSpotter's Create Marker category drop down menu; Print Screen of NewsTrust's list of topics to search by.
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