NewsCred CredRank Leaders for Week 1: 
and 
Just one week into the official NewsCred alpha, we thought we’d share some of the very early results. Just seven days in, the NewsCred community has declared the most credible mainstream news source to be the Economist! Congratulations to the Economist and all the journalists, fact-checkers, and staff who work hard to bring us the highest quality news. As with most early tracking polls, all the regular disclaimers apply. Our core group of alpha testers is but a small sample of the eventual NewsCred population, and given the limited dataset (7 days!), these rankings are still quite fluid. However, the Economist seems to have settled into the top spot quite comfortably.
Meanwhile amongst our blog sources, TechCrunch continues to dominate. Given the early adopter makeup of our alpha, it’s no surprise to see one of the most established news sources in the blogosphere head up the list. In fact, TechCrunch has maintained its top credibility ranking through the entire week! Congratulations to Mike Arrington and his crew of dedicated writers.
Its been a fantastic week here at NewsCred. We’re excited to see an active community blossom and we’ve been extremely busy reading and responding to all your wonderful feedback. I’ll published some of the best (both positive and constructive) feedback in the next few days. In the meantime, keep it coming!
At NewsCred, our goal is to become the authoritative source for discovering all the world’s most credible news on the web. The success of NewsCred hinges on our ability to grow and nurture our community. I think we’re off to a great start, so a heartfelt thank you to all our alpha testers from Iraj, myself, and the rest of the NewsCred team.
Update: Coincidence? Techcrunch just posted a list of ‘Top 100 Bloggers‘, although their list is clearly labeled as a list of how often a blogger appears on the tech news site TechMeme. However, it’s an interesting talking point, and I’m curious to see the intersection between our ‘Most Credible’ list vs their ‘Frequency of Posts’ list. Its clear that quantity does not translate to quality. At least not necessarily.
Hi. I’ve been using NewsCred for the past week and its been great so far. I can see why Economist is the top source. Where can I find the top sources list on the site?
Congrats Newscred on the first alpha week. Would it be possible to release the cred/not-cred stats?
@Raj – we love hearing our users are happy. So thank you. The top 10 credible articles, sources, and authors are viewable on the right hand side of any page at any time (limited author set for the moment – check in a week!).
@Rashunda – thanks for the support! i’ll publish more of the statistics during the next few days. its an exercise we plan on doing regularly, especially when our user base and dataset reach more significant numbers.
we’re also building out our analytics module which will allow you to slice and dice the data as you will! i’ll keep you posted. Also, as mentioned on Twitter, look out for a blog post about how we default each article’s CredRank.
Just tuned in on this website and the first thing I see is the economist declared as the most credible sources. (http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2008/04/the-economist-o.html)
Hope to see some more posts and a little fresh wind in the big fog of shit called media.
GLWH
As a journalist, I’m looking forward to seeing yours stats on most credible journalists/bloggers. Is this going to be published weekly? On the blog or the site or both? Of course, make sure I’m on the list!
@Peter, we’ll definitely be publishing these lists weekly on the blog. However, you’ll have full access to realtime data once our Analytics module goes live.
BTW, a lot of emails have come through asking for the full list, so I’ll publish the top 10s tomorrow. Until then, kudos to the the two #1s!
But, but, TechCrunch is not the paragon of credibility that the vox populi grants it credit for. There have been numerous cases of crossed wires between the publisher’s investments and the editorial content. Numerous, I say.
I still read it, of course – I’m not crazy; I need to keep tabs on the dealpool, Techcrunch’s best feature.
@Alan – good points. I’ve found that TC does a fairly good job on disclosing conflict of interest, at least recently. I’m a firm believer that Mike A has the right to cover startups where he may have an interest, as long as its VERY clearly disclosed. Any specific examples you can think of?
Of course, our dataset is very small at this point. I would imagine if such ‘crossed wires’ episodes do occur in the future, the TechCrunch CredRank would drop over time. Moreover, I would hope to be able to use our data to pinpoint where any such credibility gaps did occur.
i don’t buy this. what does a bunch of techies whose idea of news is the latest product release from apple know about journalism or credibility anyway? i agree with alan, techcrunch winning a popularity contest has nothing to do with anything, least of all journalistic credibility! and i think anybody with a brain knows the economist is just right-wing rag whose idea of news is shilling for the latest twist on hackneyed free-trade-will-solve-the-world’s-problems hooey.
sasha – thanks for the comment. definately adds some color to the conversation.
as mentioned, if TC should not be at the top, our community will vote it down. you should know that our alpha user base has a VERY small minority of techies. however, given the small dataset, the results are still fluid and can swing heavily.
similary, if ‘anyone with a brain’ knows the economist is not credible, as we start adding more users with brains, I would expect to see it drop in the credibility rankings.
btw, are you part of our alpha? would you like to be? we love debate, and would be happy to make you part of the community.
wow sasha. do you need a hug? I’m not a techie and I’ve been using the site for the past week, and I think you just called me brainless. I may not think the Economist is the most credible source out there, but I think these guys are on the right track. as for techcrunch, i had never heard of it, but don’t really see why a technology blog is ‘not allowed’ to be the most credible source.
BTW, I have yet to see any product release from Apple on NewsCred. A bit too many articles from the BBC for my liking though. Other than that, I’m a big fan so far.
@sasha – btw, are you the same sasha who loved the ron burgundy poster from a couple days ago?
@Sasha – > I’m not right wing in the slightest, and, as a former subscriber to The Economist (was too expensive to keep it up) I’ll admit that the articles had a slight lean…but…and here’s the big but…the articles in The Economist seem credible to me. Note that I didn’t vote for The Economist, but I can understand why someone would.
And I’d like to think that I have a brain.:-)
psychicchatonline…
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