Independent News - an idea for aggregating independent journalism
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I’ve run !independent_news@lemmy.today for a few months now, along with newly associated !indy_news_canada@sh.itjust.works — because I’m Canadian.
Now, I’d like to gage interest in an idea. It would be neat if every country had their own independent journalism community, aggregated by and partnered with Independent News where everything will be cross-posted. I’m currently doing this with Indy News Canada.
My goal is to expose the fediverse to more diverse, trustworthy journalism which isn’t beholden to major corporate interests.
I’m an English/French(ish) speaker in North America, which limits my media diet, so I would love to see more dedicated indy journalism hubs for other countries and regions. I just can’t run them, and shouldn’t, since I’m not local to those regions and can’t match experience to their issues.
If you agree and would like to start a community for independent news in your country or region, let’s talk!
P.S. My communities are english and english/french only, I can’t moderate posts in a language I don’t understand. But! I’ll open up Independent News to cross-posting if non-english/french posts are being reviewed by someone who speaks the language.
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I’ve run !independent_news@lemmy.today for a few months now, along with newly associated !indy_news_canada@sh.itjust.works — because I’m Canadian.
Now, I’d like to gage interest in an idea. It would be neat if every country had their own independent journalism community, aggregated by and partnered with Independent News where everything will be cross-posted. I’m currently doing this with Indy News Canada.
My goal is to expose the fediverse to more diverse, trustworthy journalism which isn’t beholden to major corporate interests.
I’m an English/French(ish) speaker in North America, which limits my media diet, so I would love to see more dedicated indy journalism hubs for other countries and regions. I just can’t run them, and shouldn’t, since I’m not local to those regions and can’t match experience to their issues.
If you agree and would like to start a community for independent news in your country or region, let’s talk!
P.S. My communities are english and english/french only, I can’t moderate posts in a language I don’t understand. But! I’ll open up Independent News to cross-posting if non-english/french posts are being reviewed by someone who speaks the language.
I like the idea and also want to support independent journalism, but in the UK context, I don’t think a separate community makes sense. I had a look at !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk and I think most (70%+) of the posts from my unscientific sample would count as independent (in the sense of “free from government and corporate interests, and not controlled by a major media conglomerate”).
I wonder if it would make sense to set up a bot to automatically crosspost articles from allowlisted domains from these general news communities? And if unknown links were found, there could be a mechanism to add them to the allowlist?
These were the sources I found:
- The Guardian
- Al Jazeera
- Novara Media
- The Canary
- Socialist Worker
- Morning Star
- Democracy for Sale
- BBC
- Politics Joe
- ITV
- New York Post
- Metro
- The National
- Associated Press
- Big Issue
- London on the Inside
A lot depends on the definition of independent, and I’m focused on the text rather than perhaps the intent of the definition. If that was stronger, a lot of these could be excluded and a separate community might make more sense.
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I like the idea and also want to support independent journalism, but in the UK context, I don’t think a separate community makes sense. I had a look at !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk and I think most (70%+) of the posts from my unscientific sample would count as independent (in the sense of “free from government and corporate interests, and not controlled by a major media conglomerate”).
I wonder if it would make sense to set up a bot to automatically crosspost articles from allowlisted domains from these general news communities? And if unknown links were found, there could be a mechanism to add them to the allowlist?
These were the sources I found:
- The Guardian
- Al Jazeera
- Novara Media
- The Canary
- Socialist Worker
- Morning Star
- Democracy for Sale
- BBC
- Politics Joe
- ITV
- New York Post
- Metro
- The National
- Associated Press
- Big Issue
- London on the Inside
A lot depends on the definition of independent, and I’m focused on the text rather than perhaps the intent of the definition. If that was stronger, a lot of these could be excluded and a separate community might make more sense.
It’s true that it wouldn’t make sense for some countries. I’m thinking more like: South Africa, Indonesia, Phillipines, and Japan, for examples. Countries we don’t see as often in the north western media, especially in North America. The UK is lucky to have the Guardian and BBC covering major news, too, so they’re a special case.
I’m opposed to a bot only because I like to read everything I post, and I tend to select things I don’t see covered on my front page - or at least not from the perspective of the article I post. Though, I would be trusting other people to have read the articles they post if we cross-posted manually anyway. It’s something to think about. I get that may be too big of an ask and hard to prove.
Media Pluralism covers my intent, to some extent, meaning diversity is one of the goals. I put that in the sidebar of my communities, but could make it more prominent with an explanation. If a guardian article has been posted to one or more major communities, I don’t need to post it in mine, kinda thing.
Other than that, I don’t want to micromanage what’s considered independent if I don’t need to. I get that other community mods won’t have the exact same ideals as I do.
