Media
A Browser That Spots Spin
Concerned about subtle bias in political
reporting? A new Web service claims to
identify the sneakiest of the sneaky.
Clayton B. Reid of the piece. For example,
phrases such as Sen. John
I
NTERNET SURFERS USUALLY MUST RELY McCain “awkwardly hobbled
on their own instincts to negotiate to the microphone,” while
the dizzying amount of spin that Sen. Barack Obama “leapt
pollutes online news. But a new tool athletically from his seat.” Yahoo! News. The
offers some hope to those weary of Passive Voice: Rooting out uses company hopes to
sorting out the slanted, the yellow, such as, “Five people were killed by expand to include the
and the downright erroneous. rockets in Israel last night.” entire Internet as well as
The Web-based SpinSpotter appli- Biased Sources: Identifying print and broadcast.
cation is part fi lter, part clearing- where news sources’ involvement in “Our system has a brain,”
house, and part wiki, all accessible a story may prejudice their com- Herman explains. “It learns
through a browser tool bar. Vetted ments. from input and it is growing a
articles appear in the Disregarded Context: The Web language.
For More Info SpinSpotter-enabled site notes coverage of a political “Spin can be very sneaky, but if
Visit www.spinspotter. browser, with ques- speech before a “massive” crowd, fail- there are 1,000 eyes looking at an
com for a free download
tionable elements ing to mention that a free concert article, it makes it very hard to hide
of “Spinoculars,” the
engine’s toolbar.
highlighted. before the speech drew the audience. facts,” Herman says.
If an article has
Edits, markups, Selective Disclosure: Noting Isabel Macdonald, spokeswoman
been passed through
and comments where the writer fails to include a for the 20-year-old media watch-
SpinSpotter, a red
from other readers crucial part of the story. dog group Fairness and Accuracy
“SpinSpotter” bug will
also are visible to Lack of Balance: Flagging the in Reporting, tells Newsmax, “We
pop up.
SpinSpotter users. failure to give both sides of a contro- have looked at SpinSpotter and have
Use the system to view
new stories and make
“I believe that a versy a fair hearing in the story. doubts. It seems like over-optimistic
your own edits when you trusted free press Secondly, SpinSpotter uses a faith in a technological fi x to the com-
see spin.
and a sustainable fi ne-tuned algorithm to spot phrases plicated problem of media bias.”
republic are mutu- commonly used in slanted stories. Macdonald is concerned about
ally dependent,” SpinSpotter founder The tool’s developers tapped an advi- bias generated when opinions or
Todd Herman tells Newsmax. “Our sory board of professional journal- sources are excluded. Only long-term
job is to de-spin entities that carry the ists, purposely chosen from various study of news coverage can give an
banner of objectivity.” political viewpoints, to help design accurate picture of bias, she says.
Herman just might be onto some- the program’s parameters. However, Herman claims that
thing. The Pew Research Center Finally, SpinSpotter’s readers edit three media outlets edited online
estimates that almost 70 percent of articles and feed them back into the stories to make them more fair after
Americans consider the press to be system for other readers to comment SpinSpotter alerted them to spin. He
one-sided in its news coverage. upon. says he has high hopes that advertis-
SpinSpotter goes after spin in University of Missouri journal- ers, news media, and political par-
three main ways: ism grad students spot-check input to ties will pay to run their products
First, the company chose six jour- stop users from gaming the system to through his system.
nalism sins identifi ed in the Society promote their own political agendas. “When I hear 66 percent of
of Professional Journalists Code of Launched in September, Americans saying, ‘I want my news
T
OCK
Ethics, including: SpinSpotter now covers only online de-spun,’ I see it as a way to make a
Reporter’s Voice: Flagging articles from CNN, Fox News, heckuva lot of money,” Herman
/SUPERS
biased language to slant the direction MSNBC, The New York Times, and says. GLASS
42 NEWSMAX / DECEMBER 2008
0042_Media_Spinstopper.indd 4242_Media_Spinstopper.indd 42 111/7/08 11:39:14 AM1/7/08 11:39:14 AM
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