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Sir Tim Berners Lee at the recent launch a a new Web Foundation called for the establishment of some kind of rating system based upon whether a particular web site is truthful and trustworthy. Now to be fair, he is not envisaging a “Sir Tim Stamp of Approval” rather that various organisations could rate sites by different criteria and over time, what someone described as a “Kite Mark”.

He apparently has in mind how evil cults and rumour mongers can use the web to spread false even damaging information. Now clearly he is right in the sense that there is a lot of inappropriate material out there from porn to terrorism and every stop in-between but I personally don’t see how that can be policed or indeed, whether it is even desirable to do so. I think there is a far better and cheaper way of skinning this particular cat.

The Basic Problem

Who are we trying to protect and from what ? The answer is people from themselves is what it all amounts to and surely we know for a proven fact that you just can’t do that because people who can be ‘perverted’ by the web or celebrity magazines are disconnected in some way from their immediate physical world and the people in it, they seek ‘escape’ by whatever means they can and all the ‘good advice in the world will not dissuade them.

The Need for a Gold Standard

Where I believe there is some, if not considerable mileage, lies in creating what I will call “Gold Standard” sites and services for information but, it is not quite as easy as that and an example might give a sketch of the situation:

I currently need to replace my fridge so I can use the net to find what models, prices and specifications each retailer has but that doesn’t tell me which one is most likely “my best buy” which is more than just the cash price. To resolve this I could go to the Which site where they have tested ‘stuff’ and are unbiased but, they want me to ‘join’ and although a trial period at £1 is okay, that is not what I want – I don’t buy that much stuff in a year.

However, the “maddest site” I have ever come across is a “credit check” one where they want me to sign up on a monthly fee to check my credit – why ? I don’t buy a new fridge every month and I sure as heck don’t apply for credit every month so…

The point is that in both cases these are “Gold Standard” web sites in what they do but exactly ‘what they do’ is of limited value to most people during the course of an average human life and in both cases, they are ‘commercial operations’ in their own right and need to cover their operating costs.

Hands Up, Who Watches the News ?

The real issue is to create a common “Truth Link” that is an ‘access point’ and I would suggest that is the “News” as a raw feed rather than news as presented by any particular news outlet whether the Sun, Times, Telegraph, BBC, ITV, CNN and so on. Why a raw feed ? Because the ‘Nick Robinson’s of this world need to justify their existence, salaries, expenses and so on to the people who employ them and will therefore ‘interpret’ events which is the first stage of corrupting the “story” which essentially is what all the media do everyday.

However and before the ‘Nick Robinson’s’ can operate, the basic news data has to be ‘gathered’ so, on a daily basis, the BBC is pulling in mountains of material from around the globe in the written, audio and visual media. Okay what happens then ? Most likely news editors decide upon the story of the day and the rest lies unused until ‘another time’ or simply, left rotting in the archives.

The Basis of a Commercial Deal

Now the way it works is this; some will be BBC ‘copyright material’ because it’s staff or agents did the ‘gathering’ others, the result of commercial sharing deals with other organisations. In the case of the former as opposed to the latter, the BBC can make that material available in a raw data format with a ‘right to use’ but never sell on in return for an annual subscription fee which will probably be ‘tiered’ in some way and differentially priced according to ‘customer’ and end use.

Allow me to ‘flesh that out a bit’. There will be customer’s such as me at the bottom end of the market who write personal blogs and want access to unedited material which we can use/reproduce on a ‘non-commercial’ basis on our own not-for-profit sites. There will be others such as a local newspaper or web site that want access to the same sort of material in order to ‘big themselves up’ and sell advertising/sponsorship space, a different price and, you can go beyond this to an ‘International’ level – to yet other prices and deals

Why the BBC ?

What I’m suggesting is that the “raw news data” written, audio, visual the BBC is collecting anyway for their existing operations and that is a valuable asset in its own right and is costing the British taxpayer’s money to do anyway. Why not package that and sell an annual subscription to use it in some downstream mode? If you separate it out as a cost, in due course you may find that your voluntary subscribers are funding the whole news gathering operation.

The other main reason for using the BBC is that there is no need to develop a new “business model”, it is already funded as an operation, done properly such a service could generate additional funds… During the Second World War, people apparently tuned into the BBC because they knew that it was reasonably truthful, why not the same difference but for today ?

Paying a Subscription in the UK

Although many UK TV Licence holders will object vehemently to paying for such a ‘service’, their protests are both silly and unfounded because they cannot understand the realities of the situation, technically such people are known as ‘ignorant’.

It would have to be a chargeable service because the potential global market is huge and beyond just UK tax/TV Licence payers. In addition there are copyright and ownership rules that would have to apply and to which each subscriber regardless of contribution level, would have to agree and abide by. So there would need to be a subscription but of course, the service is not mandatory, it would be wholly optional.

There is another far more boring thing to deal with – “accountability”. If you just put more taxpayer’s resources into any “public sector” organization, it will just get absorbed so a financial charge allows a basic measurement of value, BBC resources set against income received – follow the money.

Same Costs, Different Business Model

In fact it is all rather more subtle than that but in due course and providing that it was financially viable, the benefit would be the gradual reduction of the mandatory Licence Fee to the British taxpayer. As income arose from what is a “News Gathering/Licenced Use” operation, the subscribers to such would in fact be paying for everyone’s use of that service. If you separate it out as a cost, in due course you may find that your voluntary subscribers are funding the whole news gathering operation for the BBC whilst also enhancing it’s standing globally as being the “Gold Standard” for truth without prejudice.

Once established, the BBC could become the ‘subscription gatekeeper’ for other services which it has already vetted for ‘standards’ whether access to the content of the British Library, Which Reports or Credit Reports. As to how you do that is based around the BBC access and ‘right to use’ contract. A particular ‘package’ could include ‘x’ number of Which and/or Credit Reports a year as an example. Think around it, I am not pushing this as a particular political agenda, these are a series of ideas which ‘Might’ be worth discussing.

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