I came across this site (thanks to @dcarli) and I wanted to share it with you as it was shared with me. The purpose of churnalism.com is to help the public distinguish between original journalism and ‘churnalism’, which is what they call a news article that is published as journalism, but is essentially a press release without much added.

Journalists who are no longer gathering news but are reduced instead to passive processors of whatever material comes their way, churning out stories, whether real event or PR artifice, important or trivial, true or false” -Nick Davies, Flat Earth News

Find out more about what churnalism.com does and how it works. churnalism.com/faq

Churnalism helped get us into the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Churnalism helps spread climate change deniers talking points, further endangering our existence on this planet. Plenty of the information we receive on the net everyday is or is based on churnalism and it usually isn’t disclosed the source for these articles is a press release.

Now that we’re on the topic, here’s a quick word about bloggers vs journalists. Blogging is a way of publishing information, not a political party and not an ideology to be snuffed out by journalists. Bloggers are not a monolith, we are not all the same and should be addressed as though we are.

Also, if a blogger doesn’t participate in churnalism, has high standards and has integrity in their approach to their work than a journalist would need to be able to say the same in order to have a leg to stand on in any attack against bloggers. The people need solid information and facts on which to base important decisions and when whole segments of 60 minutes are pre-made by the government without disclosure, the people are not served, they are being lied to.

Churnalism.com is an independent, non-profit website built by the Media Standards Trust (charity number 1113680)

churnalism.com