The battle against fake news is probably one of the most important things that legitimate news organizations, publishers, and platforms have to undertake, as more and more nefarious organizations and individuals aim to get the public’s attention through propaganda masquerading as news. The Trust Project is a non-partisan project that is funded by Google and other entities and aims to bring to light quality journalism and distinguish it from promotional content and misinformation. They have now released 8 trust indicators that news organizations around the world can use to build their credibility and guide users in the kind of content they are reading.
The eight indicators include the following:
Best Practices – the news outlet’s mission and commitment to things like ethics and diversity
Author Expertise – more detailed information about the journalist who wrote the piece, including other stories they worked on
Type of Work – labels to tell people they’re reading an opinion, analysis, or branded content
Citations and References – sources for the facts and assertions in investigative or in-depth stories
Methods – a sort of behind-the-scenes look at the why and how of the journalist regarding this particular story
Locally Sourced – indicates the local roots, origin, or expertise of the story
Diverse Voices – news organization’s efforts to bring diverse perspectives
Actionable Feedback – efforts to engage readers in choosing what to cover, contributing to the story itself, and making sure everything is accurate
The news organizations that have committed to this project will be able to embed markup from schema.org into their HTML code. A wordpress plugin will also be available for the qualified publishers. The platforms involved, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Bing will display the trust indicators when they publish articles. Google said they’re still determining how to visually indicate these on Google News, Google Search, and other Google products with news components.
The initial publishers that will be going live this month include the BBC, spa, The Economist, The Globe and Mail, Hearst Television,The Washington Post, The New York Times, etc. There are more than 75 organizations around the world that worked with The Trust Project on these 8 indicators.
SOURCE: Google
