About Us

NewsTrust helps people find and share good journalism online, so they can make more informed decisions as citizens.

NewsTrust.net provides a wide range of tools that enable users to separate fact from fiction on important public issues. We promote good journalism, news literacy and civic engagement.

NewsTrust.net is part of the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism training organization based in Florida.

Programs

NewsTrust.net, our social news network, features a daily feed of quality news and opinions from mainstream and independent sources, based on ratings from our reviewers. Our web review tools enable people to rate stories for accuracy, fairness, sourcing, context and other core journalistic principles — and become more discriminating news consumers in the process. We also rate our reviewers based on performance, to increase the reliability of our reviews and help them grow their own news literacy and increase the reliability of our reviews.

Besides our social news site, we offer new tools and practices to teach news literacy, through a variety of online guides, teacher guides and student guides. Other tools include MyNews, a personal filter that lets you find news that matters to you, by following favorite topics, trusted sources, as well as recommendations from your friends on Twitter. We also host activities such as News Hunts to get citizens better informed about important public issues.

History

NewsTrust Communications was founded in 2005 by Fabrice Florin, a former journalist and a digital media pioneer at Apple and Macromedia. He started NewsTrust to address growing problems of information overload, misinformation and mistrust on the Internet, caused by the rise of opinion.

Our original team included experienced journalists, technologists and community organizers with advisors such as David Cohn, Dan Gillmor, Craig Newmark, Howard Rheingold, Kim Spencer and other innovators from organizations like FactCheck.org, Google, the Poynter Institute and Stanford University.

The first public beta website for NewsTrust launched in November 2006. Its community has grown steadily over the years and includes news consumers, experienced journalists, educators and students, who share a passion for quality news and information. For the past three years, we served over 1 million unique visitors annually, through our website and widgets, with over 20,000 registered members to date.

NewsTrust partners over the years have included leading media organizations like USA Today, PBS, Huffington Post, PolitiFact, Link TV and the Washington Post, to name but a few. The site has been widely used by journalism teachers and students across the United States in schools like Stanford University, Northeastern, Stony Brook, University of Nevada, San Francisco State University and the University of Santa Clara.

Based in Mill Valley, California, NewsTrust was a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) public benefit corporation from 2008 to 2012. Funders included the MacArthur Foundation the Omidyar Network, Open Society Foundations, Ashoka, the Sunlight Foundation, the Mitch Kapor Foundation, the Ayrshire Foundation and the Tides Foundation, as well as Craig Newmark, Doug Carlston, Hap Perry, Terry Gamble and many other private donors.

In May 2012, NewsTrust.net was acquired by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism training organization. To learn more about Poynter’s news and media literacy programs visit News University, Poynter’s e-learning site.

More Info

• Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and on the NewsTrust blog.
• For the best experience, join our community and sign up for our free newsletters.
• Once you've signed up, review a story. Check our quick review guide — or our FAQ.
• For more info about NewsTrust, check our blog — or read our full 2009 Report.
• For a visual presentation, check our NewsTrust Slides (or download our PowerPoint).
• To add NewsTrust to your site, help yourself to our free widgets, buttons and tools.
• If you're a news provider, visit our partners page for info on partnerships.
• If you're an educator, check our teacher guides for classroom use.
• If you're a journalist, check our online press kit to learn more about us.
• For more info, .