Software for Journalism — Attribution, Authentication, and an Ask
Conversation, disciplined verification, story-telling, and distribution are essential acts of journalism that help people make good decisions. Journalists are these sort of necessary middlemen, filtering and composing, to tell you things you didn’t know. These messengers, it’s no secret, have been under attack for the past several decades.
News has transformed from a public service to an industry concerned largely with clicks and eyeballs. Internet and social media have increased speed but obscured sources and motivation. Rather than making decisions on trusted information, citizens must now grapple with fake news, sponsored stories, conflicts-of-interest, eternally breaking news, and toxic echo chambers. We need help.
I don’t believe you have to be Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, or Jon Stewart, to improve the situation. I’m a software engineer so I plan to use my skills and experience to build software.
I’m early in my quest and know almost nothing about niche software journalists are using. At this point however, I know something needs to be done. I have some ideas about attribution and authentication which seem to be some core issues and will soon start building.
I’ve been calling this Project Corgi after these cute dogs that are able to nip stray heels and dodge annoyed, rear-flying hooves. Decentralized technologies like browser extensions, installed apps, and networked servers are similar in their resiliency and utility. In Corgi, I envision a set of tools that journalists and readers can use to verify information, to curate reputation, and ultimately to improve public discourse.
As I begin thinking about the first tooling, my ask is to share what you use to verify the news. If you are a journalist, I’d love to discuss your challenges. Tell me what has worked to get the truth out to a maximum number of readers.
If you agree something needs to be done and want to help, please share this, follow next steps, or reach out. I’m here and on Twitter.
