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Archived March, 2004
Want your daily news fix? Don't waste time and don't miss out on
top flight reporting. Use Newsknife to cut straight to the world's
best news sites.
Our quality rating system has checked out major news sites on your
behalf.
We haven't been distracted by empty gimmickry or obscure good points.
If it isn't nourishing news in your face in seconds we're out of
there - and so should you be.
Here's how Newsknife rates the news sites:
Each month we compare how sites handle a top international story
We check out a major story like the fall of Baghdad or a new Middle
East suicide bombing. The resources and methods each site uses on
a big story are indicative of what they do on all news stories.
Here's what we rate them on:
1. Did the site cover the big story? Most other sites did.
2. Did they make it their top story? Or near-top story?
Most other sites did.
3. Did they put some text with the headline? Why force you
to click through to the story? Maybe today you just want to surf.
4. Did they have good full-length coverage of the story?
Or just a few skimpy paragraphs with maybe half the story?
5. Did they add backgrounders and associated stories to give
you the bigger picture? That's a sign of serious news coverage.
6. Did they give you video, audio, photo galleries, or useful
interactive news? If you can see the story that's even better.
7. Did they state the story source? If they didn't tell
you its written in-house or from a source like Reuters, who knows,
it might be a publicity piece.
8. Better still, did they name the person who wrote it?
Some say that naming writers and reporters encourages personality
cults. We say it shows that the site is committing top staff, proving
they're giving you top quality news.
9. Not so good: they only ran a wire story unchanged. If
they're that lazy on a big story imagine how slack they are on lesser
stories.
10. Also not good: there were two versions of the story on the
site. So if you clicked just one did you get only ½ the
story?
Each month we check whether the sites' news coverage is generally on-the-ball over a 24 hour period
1. Did they pick well the major stories of the day? Every
day maybe half a dozen stories rise up to become the cluster of
main stories covered by most sites in that region (USA, UK-Europe,
Canada, Australia). Did the site mostly pick the right ones?
2. And did they refresh the major stories as they developed?
3. Was it easy to see which were the main stories? Because
today you're busy!!!
4. Did the site beat the others to a major story?
5. Did they show you how up-to-date their stories were?
You want to know you're reading the very latest news. Ideally the
site should state when each major story was updated. At least the
site should have a non-automated "Last Updated" time and
zone.
6. Once more, not so good: did their old news hang around so
long it smelled? Sometimes a site runs the same top story for
nearly 24 hours. Is that site short staffed, run by amateurs, a
machine, or what?
At Newsknife we rate major news sites to ensure you get the best
quality reporting. Enhance your news experience. Make Newsknife
your starting point for news. Every day.
Who we rate
The list of sites we rate using the above rating method...
US:
1stheadlines
7am
ABC News
AOL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Boston.com
CBS News
Chicago Tribune
The Christian Science Monitor
CNN
Excite News
Fox News
Google News
Los Angeles Times
Lycos News
MSNBC News
Netscape News
Reuters
The New York Times
NewsMax
USA Today
The Washington Post
WorldNetDaily
WorldNews
Yahoo! News
UK\Europe:
Ananova
BBC News
Channel 4 News
CNN International Edition
CNN International Edition-Europe
EuroNews
Google News U.K.
Guardian Unlimited
The Independent
International Herald Tribune
ITV News
msn Newsbot
Reuters UK
Sky News
The Times
The Telegraph
Canada:
canada.com
Canoe
CBC News
CTV.ca
The Globe and Mail
Google News Canada
The Star
Australia:
ABC News
The Age, Melbourne
The Australian
Google News Australia
ninemsn News
The Sydney Morning Herald
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reserved.
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