Pressland Is Building Journalism’s New Standard of Trust
In January of this year, I published an article here, “Pressland Is the First Map of the Global Media Supply Chain.” I announced my plan to map the global media output in real time, create machine-readable indices of this production data and make it available to search engines, news apps, media distributors and everyone else who sits between the media and the public.
In the months since, the Pressland team has worked tirelessly to build this technology, spread the word and recruit partners. We’ve made ourselves known at journalism conferences. We may have even ruffled a few feathers. (We’re not the first project to announce a plan to rebuild public trust in media. We are, however, the most likely to succeed at doing so.)
This morning, I archived that original article. It’s still available if you have the original link, and I stand by everything I wrote at the time. But it no longer explains what, exactly, we’re doing at Pressland. It’s not a useful pitch for the current product.
This is a better description of what we’re building:
Imagine having a flight data recorder attached to every news article. It contains an immutable record of the article’s production — everything you need to know about the professional lives of its writer, editors and publisher. Who that newspaper, website or magazine. When the website itself was first launched. Where, when and how the article was distributed across digital channels.
Now imagine serving these records, dynamically, to news distributors, aggregators and analysts. Social networks can finally flag fake news at its source and prevent the spread of misinformation. Search engines can surface deserving local and independent media outlets who have, until now, fought for “shelf space” against legacy institutions.
With this data, news apps will refine their recommendation engines to increase user engagement. Nonprofits, NGOs and researchers in the media-trust space will work more efficiently. Media agencies and programmatic platforms will improve brand protection. This technology can bolster press freedom and transparency in regions where the media are under governmental threat.
By mapping the news business in the manner of a supply chain, Pressland is creating something new that’s urgently needed: a fundamental layer of trustworthy data for the media.
Great stuff, right? We think so. In fact, we’ve spent the past year building the damn thing. We’re not quite ready for a public demo, but we’ve got some nice code in place. And we’ve begun sharing our Universal News Protocol (v 0.1) with partners, clients and colleagues.
To learn more, keep reading or visit our newly relaunched website, pressland.com.
If you’re an investor, please contact me directly, koyen@pressland.com.
So What’s the Big Idea?
Media Are Under Threat
At Pressland, we’re career journalists who are deeply troubled by the state of things. We’re alarmed by the eroding public trust in media and lack of faith in those who report the news. It’s no exaggeration to say our industry is fighting for its life.
Mis- and disinformation sit at the center of the problem, which runs far deeper than the politically weaponized term “fake news.”
The public simply doesn’t trust the news media as it once did. They question our motives; they doubt our sources. They’re losing the ability to discern fact from opinion and propaganda. In too many cases, they outright reject the possibility of factual news reporting.
We’re not here to assign blame. We’re here to help repair the relationships — so vital to a functioning democracy — between readers and reporters, between the public and the media.
The first step is bringing more transparency to the news-production process. If we expect the public to trust our work, they have a right to understand exactly how we work.
Pressland Is a Unique Solution
Pressland is a first-of-its-kind data-intelligence platform that maps global media production in real time. It’s our mission to fight fake news, rebuild public trust and support counter-radicalization efforts in fragile regions.
We analyze:
- Every article
- Every author
- Every editor
- Every outlet
- All professional associations and related work
- All production and distribution data
This data is indexed, verified and distributed using the Universal News Protocol, a new open standard for media production.
We are launching with English-language, U.S.-based media, but have already begun planning for international and other-language markets.
Confidence in a Shared System
What do we mean by a “new open standard for media production”?
Think of the data sources that make it possible to plan your entire vacation online. When you book your flight, hotel and car, you’re confident the reservations will be honored. You trust the systems that work invisibly beneath Expedia, Trivago, Priceline and Orbitz, as well as the hotel, airline and rental websites themselves.
The entire travel industry runs on a set of shared protocols and data sources.
Or consider real estate. Whether you’re house hunting on Zillow, Redfin or Trulia, you’re tapping into shared sources of reliable home data. The same goes for countless other industries — from movie listings to investment data, song credits to weather forecasts.
Pressland is building something similar for journalism: a new layer of operational data that’s accurate, reliable, interoperable and worthy of the public’s trust.
Unique, But Not Alone
It’s not every day that new standards and protocols are proposed, written and implemented. This isn’t easy. But it’s not impossible, either. Other industries are decades ahead of journalism when it comes to standardizing their data.
Here are just a few enterprise analogues:
Why Are We Doing This?
Pressland Solves a Fundamental Problem
Why do 43% of Americans have a negative view of the news media? Why do two-thirds believe media outlets fail to separate fact from opinion? (Knight Foundation)
In large part, because — unlike travel, real estate and entertainment — the news media doesn’t offer any underlying protocols in which the public can place their faith. There is no shared layer of reliable, standardized data. In fact, apart from RSS and Atom, media production has no universal standards to call its own.
The news industry’s lack of data protocols is a fundamental flaw that contributes to the erosion of public trust.
News consumers must have faith in more than just one outlet, network, anchor or reporter. They must have faith in their ability to discern all products of the media — no matter where it’s read, watched or shared. Even when they disagree with the reporting, they have the right to know whether it was produced transparently, with accountability and with integrity.
Just as we trust Expedia, Zillow and Fandango because we have faith in the underlying protocols, the same can indeed be true for journalism. This is Pressland’s mission.
We Serve the Entire News Business
Pressland isn’t the only project working to reverse the media-trust crisis. Several nonprofits are creating certification programs to verify reputable publications based on ownership reports, hiring practices, editorial standards and other “trust markers.”
We admire, applaud and actively support these efforts, and we look forward to providing our data to them as a public service. We’re also integrating their certifications into the Universal News Protocol, our new open standard for media production.
We do, however, worry that top-down publisher appraisals run the risk of disenfranchising the enormous community of local and independent journalists who, by chance or choice, lack the resources of name-brand media outlets.
At Pressland, we don’t believe an institution’s stamp of approval should be required before a news outlet can access distribution channels — no matter how admirable the intentions of that institution.
That’s why Pressland takes a bottom-up approach. We don’t require outlets to request certification; they aren’t obliged to rework their CMS. We collect publicly available data from dozens of sources, starting with the article and outlet, and extending outward to social networks, trade organizations, media lists and other sources of professionally relevant information.
Whether they’re international brands or local muckrakers, all media outlets are given equal weight in terms of having their news output indexed. Ours is a quantitative data layer that facilitates better qualitative decisions by our partners and clients.
The Commercial Case for Trust
Pressland is not a nonprofit. We see commercial opportunities in rebuilding the public’s trust in media. But we believe that repairing trust-in-news will ultimately benefit everyone who produces, distributes and consumes journalism.
To that end, Pressland serves the entire news ecosystem, from small and independent publishers to global media outlets; from nonprofits and academics to social networks. AND, of course, the general public.
Benefits for Publishers
- Complete ownership over all production data
- Platform and algorithmic preference in news feeds
- Higher “trust scores” on third-party platforms
- Revenue-share from commercial licenses
- Brand-safe ad spaces command premium prices
Benefits for Platforms
- More accurate news-feed and recommendation algorithms
- Greater confidence when surfacing local and independent journalism
- Misinformation identified dynamically before it’s shared
- “Bad actors” flagged before they reach users
- Increased audience engagement and user loyalty
- Longer user sessions drive revenue
- Advertiser confidence lifts ad rates
Benefits for Journalists
- Greater control over professional reputation, current career and body of work
- Free career-management tools for creating media lists and managing industry contacts
- Articles reach better-informed, more accurately targeted readership
- Career-management tools drive higher-quality opportunities
- Revenue-share from commercial licenses
Benefits for News Consumers
- Higher-quality journalism in news feeds
- Malicious parties held accountable by platforms
- Greater transparency into news production, ownership and potential conflicts of interest
- Democracy saved! (Kidding, not kidding.)
How Does It Work?
Collection
We begin by collecting publicly available data from dozens of sources, starting with the article and outlet (“primary”), and extending outward to social networks, trade organizations, media lists (“related”) and other repositories of professionally relevant information (“ancillary”).
This data is verified, indexed and organized at the article level, and merged into raw indices that are stored on encrypted cloud servers.
Analysis
Raw data is sent to our proprietary parsing engine, which uses machine learning, pattern recognition, natural-language processing and other trendy pieces of technology to make sense of this digital slush pile.
During this process, we implement strict privacy protection measures to prevent sensitive and irrelevant personal information from going public.
Even if a journalist were to volunteer personal details that we don’t consider to be professionally relevant — a child’s photo on a public social media account, for example — our analysis errs on the side of privacy.
The output is organized into discrete units of data that adhere to the Universal News Protocol.
Storage
Prior to distribution, these discrete data records are stored on a blockchain network. By employing a decentralized ledger, we benefit from several of blockchain’s features, chief among them being immutability.
Using blockchain is more than just a technical solution. It’s an ethical signal to the industry that we’re not claiming ownership over publisher data.
In fact, publishers who opt to upload their production data directly to Pressland’s servers are given their own private keys. They continue to own and control their data; they can revoke access at any time; and, whenever this data is accessed by a commercial client, they receive a licensing fee in the form of revenue-sharing.
Distribution
Pressland’s data is available to partners and third-party developers via an Application Programming Interface (API). Commercial clients pay licensing fees based on data consumption and their intended use of this data.
Qualified nonprofits, NGOs, academics, researchers and media partners receive discounted or free access; basic public access via our website, extensions and future apps will always be free.
Standard safeguards such as data and search limits will be implemented to prevent abuse.
Who Are We?
Our Team
Jeff Koyen, CEO & Founder
According to The New York Times, “The face of web tech today could easily be a designer, like Brian Chesky at Airbnb, or a magazine editor, like Jeff Koyen.”
Pressland’s founder and CEO, Jeff Koyen, is an award-winning investigative journalist, editorial director, content strategist and entrepreneur. He built his first BBS on an Atari 800, in 1982; he was the first zine editor to publish freely on the web, in 1993; his first startup, Assignmint, was a pitch-to-payment workflow platform built specifically for freelance writers.
His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, Crain’s New York, New York magazine, The Guardian, Men’s Journal, Los Angeles magazine, Adweek, Forbes, Penthouse, Fortean Times, Fatherly, Maxim UK and many others.
Alexander Zaitchik, Editorial Director
Alexander Zaitchik is a journalist, editor and author with more than 20 years’ experience working on both sides of the editing desk. He has lived and worked throughout the U.S., Latin America, South Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe. He is the author of two books on politics and the media.
Alex and Jeff Koyen first worked together in the Czech Republic in the early 2000s as co-editors of The Prague Pill, a newspaper. They have since worked together at numerous other publications, including New York Press.
Nicholas Zaillian, CTO
Nicholas Zaillian is a New York-based software developer and consultant. He writes on topics relating to software development, management, philosophy and more at hackernotes.io. He has a BA in Computer Science from Columbia University’s Columbia College and, for the past eight years, has helped some of New York’s fastest growing startups develop infrastructure and scale teams.
He believes deeply in the power of software and open protocols to transform societies and bring people closer together.
Ivy Lu, Investor Relations
Ivy Lu has managed investor relations at banks and venture capital firms in the U.S., Canada and China.
Gordon Weiss, Head of Global Affairs and Emerging Markets
For more than two decades, Gordon Weiss served as a spokesperson and advisor at the United Nations to resolve hostage, political and public diplomatic crises. A co-founder of the International Crimes Evidence Project, he is the author of the critically acclaimed The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers.
Daniel Sieberg, Strategic Advisor
Daniel Sieberg is a strategic advisor for Pressland in his capacity as principal at Scout Ventures, CEO and co-founder of iO and former entrepreneurial “ethicist” for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Ars.Technica and others.
Sieberg is also a former Google News Lab and Google spokesperson, a former science and technology correspondent at ABC News, CBS News and CNN, a former tech-civics-business reporter at the Vancouver Sun and author of The Digital Diet. He currently sits on the Board of Trustees at Saybrook University.
Stephen J. Ward, Public Editor
Stephen J. Ward is an internationally recognized media ethicist and founding director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A former reporter, war correspondent, and newsroom manager, he has authored numerous books about media theory and practice, include the award-winning The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond.
Alissa Fleck, Associate Editor
Alissa Fleck is a Brooklyn-based reporter and editor who specializes in finance, advertising and media.
Peter S. Green, Media Strategist
Peter S. Green is a veteran journalist who’s written on everything from wars and hurricanes to politics, drought and the economy. A former foreign correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, he covered Central and Eastern Europe for the New York Times and has been an editor and reporter at the New York Post, Bloomberg News and Crain’s New York Business.
Anthony Duignan-Cabrera, Business Development Director
Duignan-Cabrera is a recognized expert at building digital news products that incorporate diversified revenue streams, including revenue sharing, data licensing, e-commerce and lead generation. He has held senior roles at AOL’s Patch.com, Mozilla, CNN, and Bamboo Technologies, in Guangdong, China. Duignan-Cabrera was the founding Editorial Director of Imaginova Corp., the publishers of SPACE.com, LiveScience.com, and Newsarama.
Advisors
Reed Korach, Blockchain Product Design
Reed Korach is an early pioneer in enterprise blockchain technology, and he has since participated in several dozen successful token launches. He serves as an advisor to 0Chain, and he’s the publisher of Blocktrak, which provides expert research into new blockchain and smart contract projects.
Neena Koyen, Corporate Communications
A Cannes Lions Grand Prix winner who’s held senior-level positions at Refinery29, McCann Worldgroup and Viacom, Neena Koyen specializes in developing internal and outward-facing strategies for executives and brands at Fortune 100 and 500 companies.
Jason Flores-Williams, Civil Rights & Privacy
Jason Flores-Williams is a civil liberties attorney with a long track record of defending the constitutional rights of journalists and activists. His high-profile cases include Anonymous v. Steubenville, in which he quashed spurious subpoenas against journalists and drew attention to this growing trend among prosecutors.
He has been on the front lines against efforts by the government to claim the right to define journalism and deploy computer fraud statutes to prosecute reporters for their research. Jason is also a published novelist and essayist. He lives in Denver.Who’s Already on Board?
Partners
We’re honored to collaborate with several outstanding companies, organizations and agencies in bringing Pressland’s vision to life.
Got an idea for a partnership, joint venture or other relationship? Email info@pressland.com.
The leading community of freelance writers and journalists, Study Hall is working with Pressland to promote collaboration over competition in media.
All Tech Is Human is an initiative to better align technology with the interests of society. We will work together to solve the ongoing issues of media trust and transparency.
Independent Media Institute is a nonprofit organization that educates the public through a diverse array of independent media projects and programs. IMI advises Pressland on media ethics and transparency.
Rising-star media-tech company whose first product adds payment processing capabilities directly to WordPress and Drupal.
Developer of a groundbreaking hyper-personal technology, iO has partnered with Pressland to ensure the delivery of trustworthy news to their users.
Membit is a geolocative photo sharing app that allows pictures to be placed and viewed in the exact location they were captured. Pressland will help establish journalistic integrity on the platform.
Superset is a technology consultancy and product studio specializing in product strategy, application implementation and infrastructure, and full-stack development.
Professional network of developers and adopters working with ERC-721’s and other non-fungible tokens.
An award-winning, multi-disciplinary creative agency, GrandArmy is responsible for Pressland’s brand identity.
Leading NYC-based communications firm, helping to spread the good news about Pressland.
The world-class engineering team that’s building this radically new blockchain architecture is also available to Pressland.
As Pressland’s parent company, Codebase Ventures (CSE: $CODE) provides capital support, as well as legal counsel, accounting, investor relations and growth planning.
Our Initiatives
News-to-Table is Pressland’s digital trade publication dedicated to the issues of media trust and transparency. The site is updated weekly with features, reports and interviews that explore changing expectations and norms at every stage of the journalism supply chain.
“N2T” is edited by veteran journalist Alexander Zaitchik, and we count a number of notable media reporters among our growing roster of writers. We actively recruit new contributors from Study Hall, an official Pressland partner and the nation’s fastest-growing network of writers and editors.
As News-to-Table’s publisher, Pressland is committed to: paying above-market rates, paying our writers promptly and without hassle, and preserving their intellectual property rights. In September, reporting by N2T contributors Benjamin Powers and Tyler Kingkade (writing for The Daily Dot) was instrumental in LinkedIn’s decision to expand freelancer access to their “LinkedIn for Journalists” upgrade program.
Recent Stories:
Before it can be distributed, data must be indexed using standard, machine-readable protocols. Unable to find an existing architecture both flexible and comprehensive enough to meet our needs, we created a new open standard for media analysis, the Universal News Protocol.
Universal News Protocol (v 0.5) is a set of 285 data points, descriptors and hooks that provide unmatched and unprecedented article-level insights in machine-readable formats.
Universal News Protocol proposes an open technical spec for creating unique and verifiable content IDs, as well as a fully federated system for documenting the metadata, production data and syndication history of content across the web.
This new protocol is:
- Interoperable with existing media taxonomies
- Plug-and-play with major content management systems
- Entirely opt-in
In September, we published our first standard, the Universal News Identifier, which will:
- Serve as the “connective tissue” between publishers, distributors, indices and analysts
- Introduce nil or nominal drag on technical performance
- Increase public trust through greater transparency
The Universal News Identifier specifies a formulation based on certain uniquely identifying attributes of an article at the time of its publication.
Specifically, each Universal News Identifier is the SHA256 hash of the colon-delimited concatenation of article url, title and the outlet’s name:
SHA256(<URL>:<Title>:<Outlet Name>)
The final result is a 64-character alphanumeric string that is unique to each article. Universal News Identifiers are then used to collect, store and access production data from service providers, including Pressland’s own news-trust API.
Contact Us
To inquire about commercial and development partnerships, demonstrations of our technology or whatever else is on your mind, email info@pressland.com, or visit pressland.com.
