Think of this 'news hunt' as a scavenger hunt for good journalism on the 2008 elections, with a focus on election reform. Our Elections 2008 News Hunt will run from from Monday, June 30 to Sunday, July 6. All week, we will be reviewing hundreds of news articles and opinions, to find the best coverage on the presidential elections, using the NewsTrust review tool. NewsTrust makes it really easy for anyone to rate the news based on quality, not just popularity -- by evaluating each article's fairness, sourcing, context and other core principles of good journalism. (read more about NewsTrust on our About Us page.)
To join our news hunt, please follow the easy steps below. We encourage you to bookmark this page and come back to it until you're up and running.
1. Sign up:
If you haven't already, please sign up as a NewsTrust member, using our special signup page for PBS and P.O.V. viewers. You will receive an email confirmation with your personal invitation link. You must click on that email link to complete your registration. Only registered members can review stories on NewsTrust.
2. Check our listings:
To see the ongoing results of our 'news hunt', go to NewsTrust's topic page on the 2008 elections, where you can view top-rated stories on that topic, as well as today's picks and stories up for review. A similar listing will also be posted on a special P.O.V. page for this project (coming soon).
3. Review a story:
Try to review at least one story each day during our news hunt. To review a story, simply click on its "Review It" link in our Presidential Election topic page. You will then go to that story on its publisher's web site, and a second window will appear, with NewsTrust's review form. You can give an article a single overall recommendation, or rate it according to other criteria like fairness or context, simply by clicking on the stars for each criteria. Answer as many or as few questions as you like.
To find out more about reviewing stories on NewsTrust, watch our Video Tutorial, or read our Quick Review Tips.
4. Submit new stories:
Once you've had a chance to review a couple stories, we invite you to submit your own articles to NewsTrust, using our submission form. To quickly submit stories from anywhere on the web, we recommend you use our handy bookmarklet, which speeds up the submission process and only takes a few seconds to install on your web browser.
5. Fill your profile:
Take a moment to tell us a bit about yourself and fill out your member profile. The more information you share about yourself, the higher weight we give to your reviews -- to reward transparency in our community. It only takes a few minutes to share your interests, expertise, politics and other background info -- and it's a great way to make new friends.
For regular updates, check our blog. This is a great opportunity to join forces with thousands of other like-minded readers to find the best recent coverage about the 2008 elections -- and to discover a few new articles (or even sources) along the way. Our hope is that our work will stimulate even more high-quality coverage. And this is a wonderful way to practice our news literacy skills and become more discriminating news consumers in the process.
We look forward to working with you on this exciting 'news hunt' for good journalism on the presidential election. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the NewsTrust team, for help on using the NewsTrust service.
