Creating Community for NewsTrust

Blogging here's been a bit light lately, and some of that has to do with my new position as Community Developer for NewsTrust...

What's NewsTrust?? It's a non-profit, non-partisan social news platform--very different from sites like Digg and Reddit in that it not only aggregates a great number of articles from a wide variety of news sources (not just links to them), but what it asks from participants is a little bit more than just whether or not they think the story is cool or they like the person who's reviewed it....

Oh, yes, there are news story reviews by people--that's the social part (hence: social news.) But what's asked of NewsTrust members requires a bit of media literacy (one of NewsTrusts aims is to promote media literacy) No, one doesn't have to be a former journalist, journalist in training, academic or any other certified smarty-pants to be part of NewsTrust. But, if you're concerned with what's going on with the news, think about what you're reading, whether or not stories are high quality journalism or just a bunch of opinion-mongering, and want to contribute to a bit more serious discussion and rating of news stories from mainstream and alternative publications, then you might want to consider joining and contributing to NT...

I've even made it easy for ya by providing a widget in the sidebar displaying stories that are just *waiting* for your $.02....

Along with hiring me, NT has also brought on David Cohn (one of my partners-in-crime from Assignment Zero) for the role of Contributing Editor. I liked what David had to say about NT and how it's different from other social news sites:

"Rating a story on NewsTrust is not a game - it is an act of journalism because it is a way to determine, socially, what the most accurate, reliable and trustworthy account of a news event is."

Indeed!

Actually, I'm pretty lucky to be teamed up with the guys at NT. Last year at We Media Miami, I met Executive Director Fabrice Florin and award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Rory O'Connor, who's part of the NT management team. Being one of those people who doesn't run out and google someone shortly after meeting them (in hopes of finding out how important that person might be), I had no idea who these guys were--which gave me the chance to just hang out with Fabrice and Rory (and a few other people) and find out about NT. I kept in touch with both of them through the year, and when Fab called and wanted to talk with me about taking on a role with NewsTrust, I was surprised (but then again, kinda thought it might happen.)

When it was suggested that I'd be working on building the community over there, of course I wanted to do it! As I said to Fab, "well, I wouldn't be talking with you if I wasn't interested." (I'm not one to waste people's time--mine or theirs. blowing smoke doesn't help anyone.)

For me, a site isn't "social" unless there's some kind of interacting--and honestly, so many paradigms for interacting online are horrifically masculine. There's lots of popularity rating and ranking and sometimes not so subtle ways of proving to the crowd that one is either Top Dog or Girl With The Most Cake. Is that important? Not really IMO. Sometimes it isn't about being the most popular (aren't we supposed to leave that behind in High School?) inasmuch as it is being able to contribute something insightful to a community.

The short-term goal is social--but the overall, long-term intention is to contribute to something greater than one's own ego....

And, in the grander scheme, that's what NewsTrust is trying to do--build a community that will become a trusted group of folks who know where quality journalism resides on the web. Through our reviews and comments, we can be part of the news in a new way...

I've got lots of ideas for building the NewsTrust community--including opening up for some spirited cross-talk(in a future app,) better interaction through the new NewsTrust blog (which launched yesterday) and on the Facebook group...

And as for this blog--yes, I'll still be blogging here :-) (as well as having other announcements in another week or so--busy me!) But take some time and come over to NewsTrust and see what we're up to. Come, and be a part of the news!