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.
121 A frank chat with news publishing technology veteran Kurt Jackson
120 American Journalism Project makes good on a promise to fund nonprofit local news
119 Auto ad dollars are up for grabs, per Borrell's latest study
118 Reporters share insights into reporting on January 6th attack and domestic extremism
117 6AM City takes a bold move into the digital news future
116 A preview of Borrell Miami
115 An update on the antitrust case against Google & Facebook
114 A home page with over 100 ads
113 States starve publishers of ad dollars if they refuse to pledge political allegiance
112 Alden Global Capital's bid for Lee Enterpises, what the heck does it mean?
111 TV Sales Expert, Jim Doyle's book, "Selling with a Servant Heart"
110 Urgent and Sustained Advocacy Needed for the LJSA
109 From TV network news producer to editor of 90 local, online only news sites
108 Fighting for a Native American free press
107 Prognostications, predictions and prophecies from industry execs
106 With 27 community papers meet Cherry Road Media
105 Behind Raw Story’s Progressive Mission
104 Fighting PIO chokepoints
103 Word in Black: Helping the Black Press Survive & Thrive
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