Brown Bags kick off at Stanford

On November 7, the Stanford arm of the Institute hosted the second in a series of “Brown Bag” lunches launched earlier this fall. The Institute welcomed David Cohn, head the engagement team at AJ+, speaking on “structured journalism” and how he sees stories as a collection of “interconnected cards.” As a story develops, Cohn said, AJ+ only writes and pushes what’s new. The stories are time-shifted and become long-form over time.

Craigslist founder, Craig Newmark, spoke about his experience as a news consumer on November 18 at the second fall “Brown Bag” lunch. Newmark’s talk, which was live-streamed to students at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, spurred a discussion about how the news media might better “signal” to readers and users that news and information was “trustworthy.” In other words: That it had been properly vetted, sourced, edited and reported.

“I just want news I can trust,” Newmark said, pointing out that “a trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy.”

Newmark suggested that technology could be used in better ways to help readers better identify “trustworthy” news. Suggestions included: using algorithms to push trusted news to the top of new aggregators, publishing a code of ethics, making use of transparent links that show sources,  istinguishing between original and derivative news reports, labeling opinion as such, and correcting the record, quickly. Read further on Craig’s thoughts ont he subject here.