Site Aims To Out The Spinners

A new website seeks to arm readers in the war against media bias with its spin-seeking software.

The download tool from start-up SpinSpotter can be used on highlighted text to root out transgressions against what it sees as the key tenets of journalistic ethics.

Taking its cue from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, SpinSpotter’s technology (based on algorithms) is designed to highlight The Seven Deadly Spins, including lack of context, use of biased sources and selective disclosure.

Users can download the application in the form of a toolbar and use the Spinoculars to test online news articles.

They are then encouraged to flag up any breaches of ethics to others within the SpinSpotter community.

At present SpinSpotter is only available to those with Firefox 3 (Internet Explorer 7users should be catered for within the next couple of weeks) and a New York Times blogger produced this post on her attempts to spot the spin.

If you want to know more, visit The Editors Weblog.