About us
The Media Standards Trust is an independent registered charity that aims to find ways to foster the highest standards of excellence in news journalism on behalf of the public, and ensure public trust in news is nurtured.
We exist because we believe high standards of news and information are critical to the health of our democratic society. These standards are being challenged by the enormous, revolutionary changes in the way in which news and information are produced, funded, packaged, delivered and consumed. In many areas these changes are leading to: less accurate reporting; less substantial sourcing; an escalation in the use of ‘manufactured news’; an increase in self-censorship; a growth of subjective over objective reporting; and a reduction in sustained, in-depth reporting on the ground, particularly investigative reporting.
Of course there have always been high and low standards and always will be, but right now, as the news media is transformed, these standards are under threat as never before. We will work on behalf of the public and the public interest to find ways to preserve and foster high standards.
We do this through a combination of debate, research and initiatives. We are currently pursuing four main projects:
- 1. News Debates We host debates about standards in the news media with eminent figures from the media and public life. Recent events have included debates on the role of the media in public life, and the the influence of the growth of PR on journalism. You can listen to some of our debates on our YouTube Channel
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- 2. The Orwell Prize The Media Standards Trust is a partner of Britain's most prestigious prize for political writing, established in memory of one of Britain's finest writers and journalists. Each year, one prize is awarded for the book, and one prize for the journalism, which comes closest to Orwell's ambition 'to make political writing into an art'. For more information, visit the Orwell Prize website, or the Orwell Prize YouTube Channel
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- 3. Journalisted Designed to improve public accountability of journalism, Journalisted is a free website which allows you to find out more about journalists and what they write about. You can search by journalist, news outlet (most of the national press, and BBC and Sky News, are covered at present) or subject, find out which subjects are most popular, link to a journalist's previous articles, find out who else is writing about similar topics, have your own 'Daily Journalisted' newspaper (with your favourite journalists) delivered to your inbox each morning, and find out who's blogging and commenting on articles. Try it here
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- 4. Transparency Initiative A major new international initiative led by the MST (in association with the Web Science Research Initiative, led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee), the Transparency Initiative is exploring how to make online news more transparent, giving you - the public - the objective details you need to make informed choices. Think of it as the nutritional information helping you with your news consumption!
We also conduct research into areas of concern – such as the influence of government spin on the independent media, the increasing power of marketing and public relations, the accountability of news organisations, and the effectiveness of press self-regulation (see Media Research).
Press