Measuring the News.

One of the primary goals of Newsridge is to establish methods to measure news.  We feel that through measuring a journalist’s metrics (such as their correction rate and source ratio) along with audience reactions to their work (like source relevancy and perceived bias), we can achieve credibility through hyper-transparency.

To put this data together we lean heavily on user interaction, and the data we collect gives us insight into what you think is objective (or not), what is incorrect, and ultimately what is important.  It also gives you, our readers, something to participate in and be a part of.  Since our audience is a part of our transparency, we feel we will be a more credible source of information.  Simply put, if you don’t trust yourselves, who will you trust?

Here is a brief overview of some of the data points we would like to share with you:

  • Spectrum Voting.  Instead of up and down votes, users can vote left or right on an article or comment.  Basically it is tipping the traditional up/down vote on its side and using that information to give the content more meaning.  To start, we will focus politically.  (Does the article lean left? Does it lean right?  Is it purely objective?) Can you think of other spectrums this could apply to?
  • Categorization of the top articles by popularity.  Articles on the front page and on “relative articles” will be determined by user interaction.  The more interaction with an article (votes, views, etc.), the more likely it will appear for other users.
  • Errors.  Is there an error or does something need correcting?  Eventually users will have the ability to call out an error on an article, but right now it is self reported data.  These corrections will be monitored and displayed to you on the article and journalist pages.
  • Sources.  This will be self reported information as well.  We have to be careful with sources for many reasons, but we will share everything we can about them.  We tie all articles together that share the same source and keep track of how many times a particular source is used.  If it is a public source, you will see who it is.  If it is a private source, we will disclose as much information as we can, and also link it up to how it has been used by other journalists.  For example, “a senior white house official,” will be tied to a generic description about who a senior white house official is so you can determine what kind of impact they should have on the story.
  • Impact.  This will be collected from how often an article is viewed and shared.  Right now we are basing it on the idea that the more the article is shared or referenced, the more impact it has.  This can be an important stat when determining a journalist’s importance to the audience.  This metric may not be ready for the launch of the beta, but should soon follow.
     


This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as measuring Newsridge content goes.  What ways do you think we should measure our articles and journalists? We’d love to hear your feedback.  Please leave us a comment, tweet us a suggestion @newsridge, or drop us a line at social[at]newsridge[dot]com.