Reading the news is challenging due to fake news and biased media sources. Given the advent of fake news and biased media outlets, reading the news can be overwhelming in today’s world. These objective news apps and websites are doing their best to provide you with free, objective content.
In addition, these apps take different approaches to the problem of fake news. Some rely on crowdsourced news and summaries. Others employ artificial intelligence to determine how objective a story is.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to today’s major news dilemma. However, you can break through the cognitive bubble and avoid disseminating bogus news using these different approaches.
1. Newsvoice: One of the Best Objective News Apps
This is a collection of links and summaries submitted by readers. People can contribute connections to NewsVoice. The website then provides alternate links to the same story from media with opposing political views.
Over the last three years, Newsvoice has carved out its niche in a crowded field of news aggregators. It now has a thriving community of users who use Newsvoice as their primary newsreader and contribute news pieces and summaries.
When you click any headline on Newsvoice, you’ll find several links to the same story. A label identifies the political leaning or inherent bias of each link source, such as Left, Right, China, Russia, etc.
Newsvoice has tight regulations concerning what can and cannot be included in a summary, therefore, not all articles include one. Professional journalists analyze all user-submitted summaries to ensure that they meet quality requirements.
Newsvoice uses a mechanism similar to Reddit’s upvoting system to rank its content. A live comment area invites people to participate. Registered users can also save news to their Favorites for later reading.
2. TrustedNews: Calculate an Article’s Objectiveness
The TrustedNews plugin for Chrome determines the objectivity of any article. It does so by examining its language rather than the media outlet‘s slant.
It’s critical to recognize whether the story you’re reading is objective. This is especially true at a time when the news industry is frequently accused of having inherent biases. In examining how an article employs language, TrustedNews uses a novel technique for determining objectivity.
To establish a profile, most checking extensions and applications rely on the reputation of the primary website and additional articles. This, according to TrustedNews, is not a fair method to evaluate if a story is fundamentally objective. Therefore, it employs AI to scan the article’s language and classify sentences as objective or subjective, then assigns a score.
It’s fun to read news articles from sources you generally trust and then run them through the TrustedNews scanner. Often a source you believe to be objective is swaying your perspective through how it frames the story.
3. Acciyo: Context and Timeline for Any News Article
With the constant deluge of news these days, it’s easy to lose track of a subject. One cannot expect the average reader to be fully informed about all current events. With a timeline of related events, Acciyo attempts to add much-needed context to the news.
The addon automatically activates in a sidebar while you’re reading an article on an Acciyo-supported website. When there are numerous entries on a given day, the timeline becomes a sequence of grey bubbles that get larger. Hover your mouse over any bubble to see the day’s headlines that are relevant to the current item you’re reading.
After that, click to open the articles in a new tab. You can also use keywords to narrow down the timeline.
A few cards for notable locations, persons, and organizations in the article are found at the bottom of the sidebar. The card features a summary and you may open its Wikipedia article directly from the sidebar. These cards give a brief blast of background information that you could be overlooking.
The sidebar of Acciyo provides a much-needed context pane for any news item. News is frequently about a series of events rather than a single incident. Therefore, the timeline is an excellent tool for analyzing and digesting events.
4. The Neutral: Well-balanced News Summaries With Twitter Reactions
The Neutral focuses on fact-based reporting. In addition, it has extra perspectives provided via Twitter responses to every given topic. The Neutral is a weekday-only news website striving to give the most balanced viewpoint on every topic.
It claims all of its news items take less than four minutes to read. Further, The Neutral claims to present an objective perspective on each occurrence.
The primary part of any article describes the most important events and reactions around the news item. In addition, it provides opinions from all parties involved. The second section, Media Perspective, and Influencer Perspective provide context.
In Media Perspective, you’ll find links to the same news story by various major media outlets across the political spectrum. Influencer Perspective displays tweets about the event from prominent figures from a variety of ideological backgrounds.
The Neutral does not provide a flood of news. It has limited resources, therefore, it only spotlights a few items each day. In a world where we’re constantly bombarded with minute-by-minute reports on every minor incident, perhaps this is a good thing.
5. Is This Credible and Is It Fake News: Cross-check for Bias and Facts
You might be questioning if the story you’re reading is true or wonder, given the recent rise of biased news. These websites are only two of many that are attempting to combat fake news. Copy and paste an article link into both sites to check its credibility.
Is This Credible examines 100,000 news stories and uses The Factual’s rating methodology. If you’re unfamiliar, The Factual, formerly CivikOwl, is one of the smartest news apps for avoiding fake news. However, when the news is fresh or the website isn’t popular, Is This Credible doesn’t always return a result.
That’s when you might want to check Is It Fake News to see if the piece contains any inherent bias. Is It Fake News is a quick way to see if an article is trustworthy or biased. In addition, it provides links to similar content on other websites, allowing you to compare and contrast.
Both apps have a Chrome extension. However, only install it after you’ve tried both apps and decided which one you prefer.
Image Credit: Andrea Piacquadio; Pexels; Thank you!
