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Are All News Sites Trustworthy?




Trust is a big word for a lot of people. I know it takes me a while to fully trust someone by being vulnerable with them but I find it very interesting that a lot of people seem to be very trustworthy of news channels, sites, etc. Today we will analyze two news sites to see if they meet the Trust Indicator Standards and what they may or may not be missing.


The news sites we are going to analyze today are Arizona Daily Independent and Arizona Mirror.


First, let's take a look at the indicators in Arizona Daily Independent:


  • Journalists: When you go to their Our Team page from the Home drop-down, there are three actual people that are on the team. You have the Executive Editor; Jose Borrajero, Co-Founder; Loretta Hunnicutt, and Publisher; S. Adalberto Oros. What is interesting is when you click on their name it actually takes you to their personal Facebook or Twitter pages as shown below:





One of the biggest red flags I noticed is that the publisher's Facebook profile, clearly states "Latinos for Trump." So as a news site that claims to be independent and reports from both sides, this doesn't seem very trustworthy, especially having this as your link to get to know me.


  • Labels: There are labels on the news page but again with all the Ads all over it's hard to really focus on what article you are wanting to look at. The labels include News, Education, Sports, and Opinion.



  • References: Within this article, there are a few hyperlinks that I wanted to see if they were reputable. The first reference was from AZ Free News. I did a little research into this news site and found that their Managing Editor Eric Porteous is actually a financial coach. One of their reporters Corrine Murdock is in fact a reporter and has been featured in Fox News, and reporter Terri Jo Neff has actually written many articles for Arizona Independent News...




Corinne states she has been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News.


Multiple articles written by Terri for Arizona Independent


Some of the hyperlinks are:






An opinion based blog it seems.



  • Local: Everyone on the team is local so that is a positive because it does bring local knowledge to the site.

  • Diverse Voices: I truly feel like this site has more of a conservative voice rather than a diverse voice from all sides of politics.

  • Actionable Feedback: The article we are looking at does allow active feedback with links to the Arizona Department of Education Empower Hotline where you can submit issues you may have.

  • Methods / Best Practices:


Now we will take a look at the AZ Mirror:


  • Journalists: To start there is a big team of journalists associated with this news site which is already a good sign.



  • Labels: There is a clear dedication for each label such as Elections, Law and Government, Immigration, Education, and Benson's Corner.




  • References: Sources are easy and accessible within articles.

  • Local: Everyone is local which brings a local voice to the new site.

  • Diverse Voices: It does seem that AZ Mirror has more of a level playing field when it comes to both sides being accounted for.



  • Methods / Best Practices: AZ Mirror uses established journalistic practices, including fact-checking, multiple sourcing, and attribution of sources. There is plenty of articles that are reliable and use proper sources to know that these are trustworthy sources.

After looking over both sites and going through the Trust Indicators it is evident that some news sites are much more trustworthy than others. If you are ever unsure it doesn't hurt to use the SIFT method to truly analyze and then also use the trust indicators on top of that analysis. At the end of the day when comparing the two sites AZ Mirror automatically looks more trustworthy than the Arizona Independent News with all the Ads and distraction that creates a total mess.




 
 
 

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