NewsTrust was a non-profit news network that operated a web site where users were able to reference news stories, rate those stories according to quality of

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...

, post reviews, and add stories they found worthwhile. It was operated and co-founded by former Wikimedia staff member
Fabrice Florin

History

NewsTrust was first presented as an idea via

MoveOn.org MoveOn (formerly known as MoveOn.org) is a progressive public policy advocacy group and political action committee. Formed in 1998 around one of the first massively viral email petitions, MoveOn has since grown into one of the largest grassroot ...

, in which MoveOn co-founder

Wes Boyd Wes Boyd (born c.1960) is an American software developer and political organizer. In 1987, he and his wife Joan Blades co-founded Berkeley Systems, a San Francisco Bay area software company.Bozman, Jean S. (1990)Macs talk to visually impaired, '' ...

expressed concern about "traditional media...losing" its way. He recruited Fabrice Florin, then CEO of cellular content provider Handtap Communications, to run the effort as part of NewsTrust Communications of

Mill Valley, California Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

. Users and editors of the NewsTrust website would rate news stories on a daily basis as to whether they were "news you can trust." The site was launched in a basic mode in May 2005. In 2011, NewsTrust piloted a

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

-specific site focused on news local to the Baltimore area. NewsTrust launched in Baltimore due to its proximity to the

Open Society Institute Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a sta ...

's Baltimore offices, and hired a former editor of the ''

Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...

'', Mary Hartney, as the editor. The Baltimore pilot ended six months after it was launched, although user-submitted content continued to be posted, and the NewsTrust mission shifted to a more "fact-checking service"-based model for the 2012 election. From June 2012 until the website went offline, NewsTrust was owned and operated by

The Poynter Institute The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism school and research organization in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. The school is the owner of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Netw ...

Partnerships and funding

NewsTrust had many media partners, including

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

PolitiFact PolitiFact.com is an American nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, with offices there and in Washington, D.C. It began in 2007 as a project of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' (then the ''St. Petersburg Times'' ...

and the

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

and advisers including

Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold (born 1947) is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities (a t ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and Craig Newmark of

Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, Gig worker, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. Craig Newmark ...

. NewsTrust also received financial donations from nonprofit foundations and private donors, including a $500,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation in 2008 and Omidyar Network in 2010.''San Francisco Business Times''
Omidyar Network awards $100K to NewsTrust to separate wheat from chaff
March 2, 2010.

References

{{Reflist American news websites American journalism organizations