True/Slant is a new online publication slated to launch at the end of March. You don't hear too much about new print publication launches these days. The full migration to digital news is well under way.
Billed as a cross between The Huffington Post and Slate, True/Slant sounds intriguing. It looks like Springthistle Design is building initial html/css/images for the customized WordPress build.
Some of the early contributors are Mark Drapeau and Leafy Living. Another characteristic of the digital environment and new media model is the emphasis on who contributes. The old model was built around a process and distribution. The new model is built around content. In this model, content creators need to have more of a personality as they are in direct contact with their readers. True/Slant already has a Twitter account.
The line "news is more than what happens" was written by Jock Whitney as chronicled in The Last Editor by Jim Bellows. I see the connection. It was Frank Lloyd Wright who said that truth is more important than the facts. The importance of truth comes to the fore in the journalists code of ethics - seek truth and report it.
To give you a personal example, I was recently in a call with a writer for a business publication in another city, one I have not worked with before. I was asked to confirm information I was not privy to and therefore could not honestly do. The editorial choice was to go to print anyway on the basis of hearsay.
Print newspapers are indeed becoming more aggressive as they're facing a steep decline in subscriptions over digital and eventually competing mobile news destinations. Personally and professionally, I do have a problem with something being published that does not reflect the truth. It seems to me that opinion is getting a better deal these days. Will the pendulum swing back?
What do you think?