• ADVERTISEMENT

    577 U.S. News Sites Now Using hNews

    by Martin Moore
    October 13, 2010

    The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865. It is the only daily broadsheet newspaper in San Francisco — and is published online at SFgate.com. In the 1960s Paul Avery was a police reporter at the Chronicle when he started investigating the so-called “Zodiac Killer.” Earlier this year Mark Fiore won a Pulitzer Prize for his animated online cartoons for the paper. (It’s well worth watching his cartoon that has Snuggly the security bear demonstrating how to make the Internet “wire tap friendly.”)

    I’m focused on the Chronicle these days because it is also one of 577 U.S. news sites now publishing articles with hNews (see the full list here).

    hNews is the Knight News Challenge-funded news microformat we developed with the
    Associated Press that makes the provenance of news articles clear,
    consistent and machine readable. A news article with hNews
    will — by definition — identify its author, its source organization, its
    title, when it was published and, in most cases, the license
    associated with its use and a link to the principles to which it adheres
    (e.g. see AP essential news). It could also include where it was written, when it was updated, and a bunch of other useful stuff.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Essentially, hNews makes the provenance of a news
    article a lot more transparent, which is good news for whoever produces
    the article because it helps them receive credit for their work and creates potential revenue models, among other benefits. It’s also
    good news for the end user because they are better able to assess an article’s provenance, which helps them judge credibility and other important aspects.

    A Growing List

    ADVERTISEMENT

    We have long been aware that many
    sites have been integrating hNews; but there has not been a published list
    of these sites. This seemed to us a little unsatisfactory. So we went
    out and found as many of them as we could and have now published them on
    a list as an open Google doc.

    There are, I understand, a few hundred more sites
    that have either already integrated hNews or are in the process of
    integrating it. We haven’t found them yet, but will add them when we do.
    If you know of one (or if you are one) please let us know and we’ll add
    it.

    If you’re interested in integrating hNews and are wondering why you should, you can read a piece I wrote for PBS MediaShift (”How metadata can eliminate the need for pay walls“), see the official specification at hNews microformats wiki, watch an hNews presentation by Stuart Myles, view a (slightly dated) slideshow on why it creates Value Added News, or see how to add hNews to WordPress.

    hNews was developed as part of the transparency initiative
    of the Media Standards Trust, which aims to make news on the web more
    transparent. Along with a grant from the Knight Foundation, we have also been funded by the MacArthur Foundation.


    Update: I’m grateful to Max Cutler for spotting a number of duplicate entries in the original list which have now been cleaned up. It’s still 577 sites since in the process of cleaning we found a few more. And, as I wrote in my original post, this number is by no means final. There are almost certainly a lot more sites publishing with hNews, it’s just a matter of finding them (through sweat and scrapers). So if you spot any that aren’t on the list, please let me know

    Tagged: hnews knight foundation media standards trust metadata microformats san francisco chronicle

    Comments are closed.

  • ADVERTISEMENT
  • ADVERTISEMENT
  • Who We Are

    MediaShift is the premier destination for insight and analysis at the intersection of media and technology. The MediaShift network includes MediaShift, EducationShift, MetricShift and Idea Lab, as well as workshops and weekend hackathons, email newsletters, a weekly podcast and a series of DigitalEd online trainings.

    About MediaShift »
    Contact us »
    Sponsor MediaShift »
    MediaShift Newsletters »

    Follow us on Social Media

    @MediaShiftorg
    @Mediatwit
    @MediaShiftPod
    Facebook.com/MediaShift