JournalList.net is a non-profit membership organization that originated and currently maintains the trust.txt reference document. Trust.txt is a simple page of code with the goal that it would be used worldwide to distinguish legitimate news organizations from non-legitimate ones.
The idea of having a universal code that achieves mass adoption by digital platforms is not a new one. Back as early as 1994, before the internet reached widespread use, a company called Nexor initiated the robots.txt reference document to aid early search engines, like WebCrawler, Lycos and AltaVista, to correctly crawl and index page contents correctly within any Website. Today it is estimated that over 90% of global sites have this file placed within their route directly that anyone can see (https://www.nytimes.com/robots.txt, https://www.cnn.com/robots.txt ).
Just a few years ago, the ads.txt file was created by The Internet Advertising Bureau to allow online buyers to check the validity of the sellers from whom they buy for internet fraud detection.
Now comes Scott Yates, a lifelong journalist and entrepreneur. In the past three years, he has devoted most of his time and energy establishing JournalList.net with a mission to introduce and promote the adoption of a new reference document —Trust.txt. This is a file that news publishers will add to their websites to signal their affiliations with other trusted news organizations.
In this 102nd episode of “E&P Reports,” Publisher Mike Blinder speaks with JournalList.net founder and Executive Director Scott Yates about their mission to have the Trust.txt reference document adopted and utilized by journalistic sites worldwide as a means to establish their authority as a trusted, credible, legitimate news outlet.
221 Hussman announces four $25k prizes for best in fair and impartial reporting.
220 Word in Black's journey from a pilot project to a public benefit corporation
219 Media sales icon Chris Lytle shares tried and true insights that still apply today.
218 A new film tells a story of how hedge funds are destroying local journalism.
217 The future of “big tech” compensation, now that Google's $100 million deal with Canada is law
216 Shannon Kinney’s entrepreneurial advice
215 Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins. A one-on-one with the SPJ’s new president.
214 Marty Baron discusses his new book, his experiences at The Post and his views on news media today
213 Unpacking the Medill "State of Local News" report
212 A 16-year-old launches a news site that is out-reporting the local Gannett "ghost paper."
211 An email cry for help saves this 138-year-old newspaper from extinction
210 Ryan Dohrn’s “ad sales punch list” to maximize revenue into 2024.
209 Small North Carolina community is now a two-newspaper town.
208 Branding is back: The latest Borrell study un-packed.
207 Checking in with the Chicago Sun-Times/ Public Media merger.
206 Community leaders speak frankly about losing their local paper and having a new publication start within 30 days.
205 A mission is to transform global news coverage by recruiting, training and then employing women journalists world-wide.
204 Arizona's newspaper and broadcast associations merge into Arizona Media Association.
203 A reluctant witness for Google’s antitrust defense. One-on-One with, Kenny Katzgrau
202 One-on-one with industry veteran John Ellis
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