Hello everyone. I've had an idea for years and this is the perfect platform to get opinions. We have active members from many diverse areas across the globe, and I'm interested in what you have to say.

  I'm sure many of you have seen the divisive tone portrayed by western media. While this is nothing new, the advent of social media and algorithms intended to keep users on for as long as possible, has contributed to local echo chambers which have divided America like never before. My thought is to bridge the divide of information.

  I'm not ready to share the domain name, but I do have it registered. I've never done something like this, so I hold every reservation that this may never come to fruition. My frustration is in how the same story can be told so radically different by different news organizations. "Man Saves Boy from Burning Building" and "Felon Seen Leaving the Scene of Arson" can be the same story about the same person depending on how they want to depict that individual. Don't get me wrong - context is important and bias will inevitably seep it's way into the story. I don't think that means we should just excuse it and not even try.

  There will be different goals as time progresses. The first goal is to show articles from left leaning media and right leaning media and pa*** out the facts. Take both sets of context and try to find the middle ground where the truth actually lies. When larger events happen, starting a timeline for those things would be another. Things like Benghazi or the Trump Russia scandal can be better understood with a neutral timeline showing events as they unfolded. I think later on a third goal may be to track the dissemination of one story from the source down through different media sites as they tell and re-tell the story.

Thoughts?

The problem with fact checkers is, even THEY have become politicized. There is this Forbes article about Snopes which is in reference to this Daily Mail article blasting Snopes about their hiring policy. The Forbes writer expected this to be "fake news" but when he investigated found nothing to contradict the story and some indicators that it was true. The Forbes article is good and outlines fair points for a fact checking service to follow. It did give me an idea.

If I were to do a fact checking site, it would stand alone; not be incorporated into a news site and I would do the following:

List every fact checker for the site and include their stance on things. These would include overall questions like are they republican or democrat. They would also include that person's stance on the larger issues like gun control, women's rights, etc. The fact checkers could use an alias if they liked but that would need to be disclosed on the website.

Have any fact check list the names or aliases of the employees that investigated the question.

Any investigation would have to include at least one person on each side. If it's fact checking if Kyle Rittenhouse was illegally carrying a weapon, have a person who's pro gun rights and one who's against (by this I mean the people who want stringent gun control legislation).

Do the opposite of a non-disclosure and have employees sign an agreement that they'll answer any media inquiries openly and honestly. Of course there would be limitations such as discussing someone else's salary or personal information without their consent.

In essence, it would be to make the business as open as possible about it's inner workings. Even if this website were to fail, it may push fact checkers like Snopes to change their approach and be more open and honest. I acknowledge these are all pipe dreams... they're nice pipe dreams though.

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