innovation OF THE MONTH.

What is trust worth to you? In our 24-hour news cycle, people get their news from their local station or social media; journalism and media are at the forefront and often questioned. Who you "hang with" matters.

Scott Yates, a former journalist, start-up founder and now the executive director of JournalList.net, has made it his mission to bring a network of trust to the news media industry. "Legitimate news publishers are made more credible by their associations," said Yates. "Trust.txt takes the legitimate associations you have and makes them recognizable by Google, other search engines and social media sites."

JournalList, the member-owned nonprofit association Yates leads, does only one thing--manage the technical entity that is trust.txt. When you join, you list your memberships and alliances, which are then turned into a text string that you post in the background of your Web site. This text file becomes a visible "trust signal" for search engines, social media sites, programmatic advertising buyers, and others looking for signals of trustworthiness.

Participating in JournalList.net costs as little as $36 per year for a small publisher. They will help you create your trust.txt file for that fee, and your organization will be listed on the trust.txt file maintained by JournalList. Best of all, you will be doing your part to strengthen trust in news media and help build an independent framework that signals credibility. For more information and to sign up, go to journallist.net.--RB

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