Help wanted – Presscheck.org, a system for verifying journalists on Mastodon

[daveleebbc]

A few weeks ago I created, in one late evening of frantic activity, PressCheck.org — a resource for listing and verifying journalists on Mastodon: http://www.presscheck.org

Each profile on the site contains a unique “rel=me” link that, when added to the corresponding Mastodon profile, activates a prominent “verified” box. It works across any server, and in the absence of a formal verification system, as previously seen on Twitter, this method seemed the next best thing.

It is my view that the basic task of confirming journalists are who they say they are is a critical need for any emerging platform likely to be used for disseminating news.

Many agreed. Too many. The waiting list for verifications is growing more quickly than my capacity to verify and publish, with spikes whenever a fresh controversy emerges on Twitter (such as the recent banning of journalists, for example). We have had 1,400 submissions, of which almost 500 have been verified — more than 150 subject beats, and 250 outlets.

The system works — but I’m clearly no developer, and this project desperately needs one. For that reason, I wanted to reach out to the Hacker News community for help in improving/rebuilding the site with a view to a relaunch sometime in the near future.

The site is hitting usage limits for certain functions — I use a paid Zapier account to export new Airtable entries into Webflow’s CMS, but each entry requires about 3-4 zaps, quickly adding up. Howie Liu at Airtable very kindly comped a pro account so we can use more automations and add collaborators.

I’m sure with a smarter eye than mine, huge and obvious improvements are within somewhat easy reach. In case it’s not obvious, there’s no money in it. I’m an SF-based Financial Times reporter, but this is a personal project for which I’m footing the (thankfully still quite small) bill.

I have no idea if Mastodon will end up being the post-Twitter destination, but while we figure that out, this feels like an important job to be getting on with.

If you feel the same way, please do get in touch. I’m on [e-mail]. Thanks for reading.

[daemmon]

News sites like ft.com should be setting up their own mastodon servers, i.e. mastodon.ft.com, and creating accounts for their journalists on that server. Then there is no need for separate verification - it will right in the person's profile name, like mastodon.ft.com/@davelee.

[daveleebbc]

I don’t think that’s the ultimate solution here — since journalists often work for multiple outlets —- and it’s highly unlikely every news org would take the route of making a Mastodon server of its own.

[riffic]

they don't even need to run Mastodon. Smart media orgs will incorporate the AP protocol in their site's content management system.