Ben Goldacre suggests a new website could be set up as “a repository of ingredients” for news stories to improve the media’s transparency when it comes to primary sources and give readers “unmediated/unedited access to full comments from interested parties”.
Such a site would contain, says Goldacre:
- A website that gives each news story a unique ID;
- Any involved party can add/upload a full press release or quote to that story’s page;
- Anyone can add a link to a primary source;
- Anyone can vote these up or down like on digg/reddit;
- You can register as a “trusted source” and not need to be modded up or down;
- Anyone can add a link to media coverage of that story.
Full post on Ben Goldacre’s website…
Related reading on the transparency debate: ‘Should newspapers publish full interview transcripts online?’