Have you ever invested seven precious minutes of your time reading an article, only to discover that it was filled with misinformation and fake news? All of us have probably been through something similar, where clickbait titles have stolen our attention and our time.
Even worse - it seems like we can't go a day without reading about some sort of media scandal. Whether it's fake news, inaccurate reporting, or biased journalism, it's hard to know who to trust these days.
This is where Credder comes in. Credder is a platform that aims to help you determine the credibility of online content. In this blog post, we will take a closer look at how Credder works and how it can be used to determine the credibility of articles.
In this article, we'll discuss the following topics:
What Is Credder?
Credder is the world’s largest news review platform that seeks to keep the news honest. Inspired by Rotten Tomatoes – one of the biggest review-aggregation companies for movies and TV Shows - Credder provides readers with article reviews from verified journalists and the public.
Credder's database creates an overall credibility score for each news article, author, and news outlet. It does this by combining the critic score received from the journalists, alongside a score received from the public.
Credder uses its innovative database to help readers avoid wasting time reading clickbait articles with content of dubious value and interest. With this approach, Credder pushes social media outlets, search engines, web browsers, news aggregators, programmatic advertisers, and content management systems to compete for credibility, instead of clicks.
Media Distrust and The Importance of Credder
In Edelman’s latest report, it was highlighted that news sources are failing to fix their trust problems with consumers. Unfortunately, these low trust levels in the media have been trending for the past decades.
Additionally, in a recent study where Brand Keys surveyed 6,850 adult Americans in an attempt to determine consumer trust in different industries.
The numbers shockingly indicate that only 8% of surveyed individuals trust social media, and only 10% trust news media. This study effectively confirms that consumers are trusting the media less, critically impacting the work of journalists and publishers.
However, the American Press Institute found in its latest study that people who see an article shared by someone they trust are more likely to engage with it and also engage more trustingly with the source that created the article.
This finding is significant when it comes to evaluating the role that Credder can play in this day and age. By providing ratings for articles, authors, and news publications, Credder can potentially restore public trust in the media.
By allowing visitors to check the article’s rating before investing time in reading the piece, it proves that credibility and reliability can still exist in the media industry.
Moreover, by relying on crowdsourcing trust and honesty, as well as user input, Credder sets itself apart from the competition and presents itself as a grassroots rating platform: by the people for the people.
How to Use Credder?
Credder is fairly simple to use. Visitors are invited to create accounts on the website before being able to access the multitude of articles, which are organized in different categories. The process is quick and should only take a couple of minutes.
Here are the steps to take to spot misinformation using Credder:
Step 1: Log in to Credder by visiting www.credder.com. You also have the option to add an extension to your browser for easier access.
Step 2: Search for the relevant article on Credder before reading it on a third-party website.
Step 3: After finding the article, check the public rating and user rating generated by Credder.
Step 4: When you decide on the article that you want to read, you can click on it to be redirected to the parent website.
Step 5: Participate by rating articles on the platform!
How to Review Articles on Credder?
Reviewing an article on Credder is meant to clarify how the publication lost or gained the reader's trust. This bottom-up approach allows the general public to hold media outlets accountable and reinforces the idea that Credder is the only company that gathers crowdsourced reviews.
Reviewing articles on Credder is a simple, 4-step process that allows the reader to freely give an educated opinion on the online article displayed. The review form consists of the following:
Step 1 - Trust rating: Readers are expected to rate their overall trust in the article on a scale of 1 to 5. If a reviewer rated an article “1 star,” that would mean that the piece is lacking credibility and it’s not trustworthy. However, if the reviewer rated the article “5 stars,” then it would signify that the piece is worthy of trust and recommended.
Step 2 – General reason: In this section, readers are asked to give a general reason for the star rating they choose. The options available are “credible,” “illogical,” “biased,” “mistake,” and “not credible.”
Step 3 – Specific reason: Even though this step is optional, the readers can dive a bit deeper and explain their reasoning. If the reviewer chooses "biased" in the second step, here is where they would be able to specify if the journalist was writing out of national bias, religious bias, or gender bias. This step is important because it allows us to understand the reasons that readers find the article to be untrustworthy.
Credder provides reviewers with a definition of each term used to rate different articles and also provides an example.
General Reason: Credible
- Investigative: Generally, journalism can be investigative when diving deeply into a topic, and sometimes investigative journalists will spend years researching and preparing the report. Topics of interest often include crimes that impacted a large group, corporate wrongdoing, or political corruption.
A great example of an investigative article would be John Carreyrou’s article in the Wall Street Journal: Hot Startup Theranos Has Struggled With Its Blood-Test Technology.
- Well-sourced: Whenever an article includes expert sources, well-executed research, statistics, and links to sources, then a reviewer can confidently say that the piece is credible. Backing up any claim with data is an effective way to win the trust of the reader.
- Great context: Whenever a journalist makes the extra effort to provide background information on the events that led to the article, the piece would be well situated and would inspire trust. Writers are always invited to answer these simple questions when writing a trustworthy article: Who? What? When? When? Why? And how?
General Reason: Illogical
- Speculation: This generally refers to the argumentation of a hypothesis that cannot be tested or observed. In this case, the journalist would be judging whether the theory is true or false, solely based on their subjective opinion, making the claim faith-based, and lacking evidence or reason.
For example: a journalist decides to write a piece on how life would be much better if dinosaurs were still alive. This claim, although humorous, does not inspire any trust or credibility.
- Generalization: When a journalist tries to make an assumption based on a whole group, using a sample that is too small in size and that can't adequately reflect the whole group, that is a generalization. Stereotyping people and making assumptions doesn't inspire trust and compromises the argument article.
For instance: this lawyer lied to me directly. This shows that all lawyers are liars.
- Appeal to authority: The journalist will try to strengthen their position by referencing a respected authority in the field, or a well-cited source. The goal, in this case, isn't to address the claim, but rather to simply win the argument by referring to authority.
For example: since Elon Musk believes that being multi-planetary is important to protect consciousness, then we should move half the humans to Mars.
- Anecdotal evidence: Whenever a journalist tries to use personal experience as a support for a claim, that's a sign of lack of proper evidence. Anecdotal evidence cannot be used as a substitute for actual data when the reader is looking for truth.
For example, my grandmother smoked regularly and she lived to be 100 years old, so smoking isn't really bad for you.
- Stacking the deck: Whenever a writer completely ignores the opposing argument by rejecting that side, that shows that the author isn’t confident enough to defend their position to the end. Stacking the deck is very common in political journalism, advertisements and propaganda.
- Straw man: The journalist avoids augmenting the opposition side by presenting a watered-down version of the opponent’s argument. This ends up looking like a weak misrepresentation of the opponent’s position.
Other categories also include: “Slippery slope,” “red herring,” “moral equivalency,” “emotion appeal,” “false dilemma,” “ad hominem,” “correlation without causation,” “begging the question,” “non sequitur,” “semantics,” “faulty analogy,” “band wagon,” “dogmatism,” and “failing occam’s razor.”
General Reason: Biased
-
- Pure opinion: Whenever a statement cannot be proven true or false, the journalist would have written a pure opinion. The author is automatically viewed as less credible if the journalism is solely based on an opinion. However, the piece can be trustworthy if the opinion is backed by data and research.
For instance: I went to the University of Alabama for undergraduate studies, and you can trust me, they have the best dining hall foods.
- Racial bias: If the journalist has strong implicit bias, then that could be reflected in the article as a form of unconscious stereotype based on race and skin color.
- Religious bias: The journalist could express bias against certain people or groups of people on the basis of religion or belief. That deems the article unworthy of trust.
- Hit piece: Some journalists would try to make a person or a situation look bad by lying or presenting inaccurate information. In reality, that information would be made up and far from the truth.
Other categories also include “national bias,” “financial incentive,” “non sequitur,” “political agenda,” and “gender bias.”
General reason: Mistake
- Misused image/ video: Whenever an image or video is misplaced in an article, it gives the impression that the piece was written without proper process. Even though most of the time a misused multimedia element is a mistake, the writer could be doing so intentionally to misrepresent a news story.
- Misused term: If a wrong definition was provided or a word was misused, that could indicate a lack of revisions. Journalists should always revise their work and looks for misused terms, as that can break trust with the reader.
- Factual error: An article could present incorrect facts as a mistake, and sometimes intentionally. Checking sources and making sure that every piece of information is correct is essential for trustworthiness.
- Study or science misrepresented: If a journalist chooses to reference a scientific or non-scientific study, and ends up misrepresenting the findings, that potentially breaks trust with the reader.
General reason: Not credible
- Satire: Some journalists may choose to use exaggeration, humor, and irony to expose or criticize other people. This is especially done in the sphere of politics. Readers may quickly feel disinterested, which could lead to breaking trust.
- Lack of reliable sources: Some articles can make too many claims, without presenting any reliable or few reliable sources. To a simple reader, it could feel like reading a story rather than a journalistic article.
- Surface level: Speaking broadly and vaguely on a certain topic is never a good idea. Readers are always looking for new information because their time and attention is extremely valuable.
- Sensational: Some writers may choose to present information with the sole intention of provoking the public’s interest and excitement. These articles generally lack accuracy.
Step 4 – Written explanation: as a last step, the reader can explain their review by writing their opinion in a few lines. The reviewer would be able to clarify how the piece could have been more credible, and why the author was untrustworthy. Since every reviewer will have their style and their preferences, written explanations are essential for clarity on Credder.
Final Thoughts
Credder has set itself to restore consumer and advertiser trust in the news industry by making content compete for credibility, not clicks. By allowing the general public to review articles, Credder has established a true grassroots community with one specific goal: fighting misinformation and fake news.
With trust in the media at an all-time low, there is a need for initiatives that organically restore trust and inspire honesty. In fact, Credder is doing more than simply providing readers a critic and public score; it is pushing journalists and media executives to create better content. As a result, Credder is a promising business that has the potential to gradually restore trust in the media industry.