NewsTrust is a nonpartisan, non-profit news network that operates a web site (www.newstrust.net) where users are able to reference quality news stories, rate those stories according to quality of journalism, post reviews and add stories they themselves find worthwhile. NewsTrust is billed as "Your Guide to Good Journalism."

Founded in 2005 and based in Mill Valley, California

Mill Valley, California

Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge. The population was 13,903 at the 2010 census.Mill Valley is located on the western and northern shores of Richardson Bay...

, NewsTrust Communications is a 501(c)(3) California public benefit organization. NewsTrust partners include the Huffington Post, PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

, PolitiFact and the Washington Post. Advisors include Howard Rheingold (Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

), Craig Newmark (Craigslist

Craigslist

Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....

) and other digital media innovators. NewsTrust has received support from the MacArthur Foundation

MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...

, Ashoka

Ashoka

Ashok Maurya or Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...

, the Ayrshire Foundation, the Mitch Kapor Foundation, the Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation

The Sunlight Foundation is a 501 educational organization founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United States government....

 and the Tides Foundation. Private donors include Doug Carlston and Henry Perry.

Highly rated news stories gain prominence on the NewsTrust web site as multiple users rate them according to specific standards of journalistic quality—among them fairness, context and the strength of the evidence presented. Thus visitors to the NewsTrust web site are able to peruse specific stories, view their cumulative ratings, and find quality journalism. Visitors may also choose to enhance their level of participation by rating the stories, writing reviews, and posting new stories.

The founder and executive director of NewsTrust is Fabrice Florin, whose stated goal is to expose NewsTrust users to multiple sources of quality journalism.

"We want to get citizens to take a moment to go beyond their usual news consumption habits, to broaden their perspective. If your viewpoint is from the right, take a look at a news source from the left. If your viewpoint is from the left, take a look at what media from the right are saying. If you tend to read mainly mainstream press, take a look at some independent journalism."

NewsTrust offers a categorized list of all the stories that have been posted since its inception.

On March 2, 2010 Omidyar Network

Omidyar Network

Omidyar Network is a philanthrocapitalist investment firm established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam. To date, Omidyar Network has committed more than $290 million to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual...

announced a grant of $100,000 to enable NewsTrust to further develop web-based tools that will help users become better informed and differentiate between misinformation and credible news. With the Omidyar Network grant, five specific pilot programs will be run over the next six months:

•MyNews – a personal news-filtering tool

•Local News Hunt – a rating system for local news

•Global News Hunt – a rating system for international news

•TrustNetworks – a community site for members and partners

•TruthSquad – a community fact-checking service.