BlackListed News Credibility

BLACKLISTEDNEWS.COM

CONENT
Overall, the content of the page is pretty good. The page is complete and has a title: BlackListed News. The site was created in 2006 and was updated today. The audience is people seeking news outside of mainstream media. Some of the articles have an anti-government bias, but not in tea-bagger fashion. There are tons of external links, to legitimate news organizations as well as other popular news websites, and they all work properly. Although there is an enormous list of external links, they are well organized, breaking them down to: Alternative news, information and analysis; news wires; community news aggregators; online only; business/economics; military; health & environment; major U.S. Newspapers; science and tech news; and satire & animation. The outside sources do support the information, but some of the articles tend to take an overly-pessimistic view of the facts. The facts are right, and supported by other news sources, however the writers like to add a little bit of anarchist-type pessimistic opinion to some of the articles.

AUTHORITY
The website has no information on who was the original creator, however there are currently many submissions from many different authors, some with notable credentials and some opinion pieces from readers, as well as other stories derived directly from major news organizations. The website administrators’ email is available on the site, and well written articles from readers are always welcome. The site doesn’t seem to have or need associations/affiliations. They generate revenue through advertising (mostly technology companies) and don’t need much money to keep up the site, as most of their stories are derived from other news sources. The domain name is simply blacklistednews.com, which doesn’t say much except that it is not news and opinion that gets the same coverage in mainstream media. The site is accurate; however some of the articles from black listed news contributors are laced with strong anti-establishment opinion. They like to use words like new world order and global governance in a tone assuming that any global authority is evil. However, there are tons of stories from legitimate, unbiased news sources from around the world. Within most of the stories, facts and opinions are usually in close range to the external links that support them.

PRESENTATION
The site is not as professional looking as other news websites; however its appearance is sufficient for an independent news site. The writing is free of grammar, spelling and punctuation problems and the style is appropriate for the news as well as their brand image. The format is simple and easy to use, with their list of sources and external links in one column and internal links to their stories in the other column. However, the advertisements are a little off-putting and make you scroll down a little to get to their excellent list of external links. The navigation is helpful, with a search option if you can’t find what you are looking for. The logo and flash at the top of the page reflect the brand image of blacklisted news well. The advertisements take up space on the wrong column, pushing the external news links down a little. However it is easy to differentiate them from each other. In the list of links, there is an editorial/analysis section, but in the main news column opinion is mixed with hard news. However, editorial pieces are clearly designated as such in the first line of reading. I looked at the source code first thing, trying to find a name of somebody in the style sheet link, but BLN is the only name used. The source has the meta tag: “The best in uncensored news information and analysis”. I had googled uncensored news to find the site. Other than that, there is nothing significant about the source code.