The Transparency Initiative
News Debates | The Orwell Prize | Journalisted | Press Self-Regulation
The Media Standards Trust, working with Sir Tim Berners-Lee's
Web Science Research Initiative, is exploring and developing ways to make online news more transparent, thereby helping the public in their search and assessment of news content on the web.
The issue
In 2008 8,760 exabytes of information were uploaded to the web (one exabyte being the equivalent of 50,000 years' worth of DVD-quality video).
How can anyone be expected to navigate through this forest of information? How can people distinguish between accurate, useful information and inaccurate mis- or disinformation?
One way is to look for news articles, particularly those written by reputable organisations. News covers every subject imaginable, accumulates faster than almost any other content, and is syndicated via countless different outlets.
Yet right now information about how news has been produced - authorship, publication dates etc. - is not captured consistently or transparently. If it was it could be of enormous benefit to the journalist, to news organisations and, most importantly, to the public.
The solution
Value Added News makes this information transparent and machine-readable.
Launched in July 2009 by the Media Standards Trust and the Web Science Research Initiative, the methodology makes the basic provenance of news articles - who, what, where, when - easily accessible and provides it in a consistent manner.
It tells people reading the article, or searching for it:
- - Who wrote it
- - What its title is
- - Where the article starts and ends
- - Who it was published by
- - What source organisation it comes from, if any
- - When it was first published
- - When it was changed since publication
- - What rights are associated with it
- - What journalistic codes of practice it adheres to, if any
Value Added News is now live on openDemocracy. In July 2009, the Associated Press announced they would be integrating hNews (the news data format defined by Value Added News) to their articles by the end of 2009.
We are working with other news organisations to adapt and integrate their news output to meet these standards.
The benefits
The general public, journalists and news organisations all stand to benefit from the distinct and consistent provision of basic information on online news articles.
A member of the public has more information with which to search for news more intelligently and to assess an article's authority and credibility.
A journalist, or someone producing journalism, can be sure their work is accurately identified on the web.
News organisations can use the metadata to create new ways in which to access and navigate stories and unlock the value of their archive.