I believe it’s possible to build a community for “news you can trust” that crosses over news brands and political affiliations.
It would need the right community guidelines: being constructive, being objective, respect, adding value. WikiTribune has some thoughts about how to minimise bias within a news community.
Here are some of the editors and journalists i’ve worked with who i’d like to seed the community with.
In no particular order…
- BBC – Robert McKenzie @nicerbloke
- Buzzfeed News – Matt Champion @matthewchampion
- CNNi – Massimo Marioni @MassMarioni
- Evening Standard – Neil Hunter
- ITV – Stephen Hull @stephenbhull
- MailOnline – Emily Shackleton @ShackletonEmily
- MailOnline Entertainment – Jo Tweedy @jotweedy
- Metro.co.uk – Deborah Arthurs @deboraharthurs
- Metro.co.uk – Jimmy Nsugba @jimmynsubuga
- Metro.co.uk – Nicole Morley @NicoleMorleyPet
- Metro.co.uk Entertainment – Sarah Deen @thatmissdeen
- The Sun – Sophie Murray-Morris @smurraymorris
- The Telegraph – Rich Moynihan @richjm
- Ex-City A.M. – Martin Ashplant @mashplant
- Ex-Independent – @JackDearlove
There are also people/organisations who i don’t know personally…
- FT / BBC – Tim Harford @TimHarford
- Guardian – Oliver Burkeman @oliverburkeman
- The Independent
- WikiTribune
- Politifact
All these people are super-busy. Why would they get involved? Evidence from StackOverflow (a community of technical professionals) suggests that people will get involved if it makes them look good. If the idea was backed by a big brand (like the Guardian or the BBC) then anyone involved would look good.