A Non-profit, Non-partisan
Project to Fight Disinformation with Citizen-generated TV Clips

NewzAgent \ n \ definition: A media-literate citizen that exercises Fair Use rights to tag, clip & share snippets of TV News for the purpose of improving Social & TV media quality. #SocialTV4Good

Dear Readers,

This page is new, non-partisan, non-profit & still very much in-progress. I hope you’ll provide feedback and get involved. 

TV is an influential mass-medium. Social networks are also powerful, partly due to their role as a “feedback loop" for TV. For-profit broadcasters exploit this Social TV synergy to drive growth in views, TV tune-in & ad sales.

My hunch & hope is that TV & Social media can complement & strengthen each other to improve Media Quality & fight Misinformation Online.

Imagine if there was an easy way for media-trained citizens to capture & tag a snippet of TV News so our Fourth Estate can discuss, comment & use it on Social? It might well lead to a higher quality media. And that helps diminish the meme of #FakeNews in abstract & concrete ways. With thousands of engaged, media-literate citizens actively tagging & clipping TV, NewzAgent can pump out useful, well-logged video facts to fact-checkers, journalists, and so many others. What do you think? Can’t wait to hear back!

B. Ring, Editor-in-Chief & NewzAgent #1

P.S. To be sure, Fair Use TV clipping is a dangerous hobby for a guy that makes his living in the video & TV tech market. But after years of researching & advising on new & changing TV viewing behaviors — including Social TV — I'm also well-positioned to champion the cause. 

As a NewzAgent, I’ll make mistakes. I welcome IP holders to challenge my Fair Use rights to any individual clip. And I’d be delighted if the EFF & similar rights orgs wanted to discuss a vision for an ‘automatic class’ of Fair Use TV clips for the purpose of fighting #FakeNews & improving Media Quality. Because today's Fair Use rules are fuzzy & difficult for ordinary citizens to navigate. Complicating the matter is the fact that in the U.S., News is a profit-making enterprise. So, News publishers trying to compete against the Google / Facebook duopoly are (rightly) fearful of yet-another stakeholder mis-appropriating their IP. That is NOT my purpose here! Rather, I want to support the Fourth Estate & our democracy. Thank you for reading.