The folks at Media Channel have created News Trust, a social news network. What is “social news”? Building on the new paradigm of collective, self-organized intelligence that is the Web 2.0, readers can rate what they are reading as “trustworthy.” The old paradigm based on advertising determines what’s popular by what people buy, or the consumer patterns of a particular demographic that also reads the news service. So rather than voting with your dollars, at News Trust you vote with your intelligence. In all honesty, though, I’m not sure if I agree with the premise that an informed citizenry necessarily creates democracy. There’s also the issue of pedagogy and education. Just because someone can read facts doesn’t necessarily translate as action or democracy. Still, grassroots media services like this are absolutely necessary to balance large corporate media organizations that tend to filter according to their own operating paradigm in the service of capital rather than humans (or nature).

Technorati Tags: MediaChannel, NewsTrust, SocialNews