Comment by aj3
6 years ago
Would it be worthwhile to create an index where people that are experts in something could vouch for the journalists that seem to know what they're talking about?
E.g. I can verify that on the information security topic Joseph Cox from Motherboard is constantly on topic, but that information is useless to me personally, because by the time Vice publishes something it's already old news for people in the industry (or anyone following infosec twitter really). But that information could be useful for someone else and in return I would like to know which journalists actually know a thing or two about say ML/AI or astrophysics.
>If we wait till we're ready, we'll never get started. —Eleanor Roosevelt
Carl Zimmer, New York Times (science); Dennis Overbye, New York Times (physics, astronomy); Geoffrey A. Fowler, Washington Post (technology); Nicole Nguyen, Wall Street Journal (technology); Dexter Filkins, New Yorker (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan); Ben Smith, New York Times [ex-BuzzFeed] (media); Bob Woodward
This simply moves the problem up one level. Who is going to vouch for your credibility in vouching for these journalists?
People who read my blog?
This is open to abuse for people, particularly companies, who have an axe to grind and will flood the "index."
This is a bad idea.
That's the incredibly frustrating thing about the problems of journalism. It's a horribly broken, extractive institution, but there are simply no better solutions. Information flow is just too important, it has too many potential exploits, and there's no uninterested agent that can validate it (eg gov't regulation of what journalists publish would be a disaster).
Do you mean something like MetaCritic for journalists? It could work, but then who reviews (and vets) the reviewers?