The 2020 pandemic has highlighted how important is is to access information form sources other than the big players in positions of information authority. As it has been those with a small audience who have proven to have accurate life-saving information and facts and have been more consistent in their public messaging than, I can at least say most mainstream western media outlets.
I began by tying to establish a problem with the current media and found a gap between the research of academia and mainstream journalism.
https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1244171133177352192?s=20
This illustrates one of the main issues, being the inconsistency in messaging especially at a time when its necessary and the government is failing to provide it.
One possible solution to this would be something like Tortoise Media News where they report news when it ready. This approach would likely be helpful in many instances but can’t always work.
One initial concept I drafted would essentially be articles constructed out of tweets in a twitter thread. paragraphs and media could be separated and reconstructed with other blocks by anyone to create curated articles from a wider range of sources. With each block linking back to the source.
Parallel to this idea I though of using the git model and highlighting changes using the traffic light system. Such that original ownership was still visible and changes were transparent
Alternatively you could also have a points based system based on how many other people share/use the content and the credibility of the poster, similar to Reddit.
I want to to use this project to show that knowledge does not need to come from authority. And to encourage more critique of all consumed information.
https://twitter.com/ct_bergstrom/status/1250827416232062976?s=21
Take the origin of the virus for instance. Factually, no-one at the time of writing knows the answer. However, some authoritative voices are already taking sides based on a hunch.
https://twitter.com/ozraeliavi/status/1251374809969094656?s=21
This leads to a problems like this one where information distribution authorities are taking the words of another authority who has been publicly criticised for spreading misinformation.
Lastly, sometimes it is the individuals at the bottom who become the only source of information.
Chinese internet users who uploaded coronavirus memories to GitHub have been arrested
This is why I feel it is so important that the field of journalism continues to evolve to involve more perspectives, at least as an intermediary to a solution.