Breaking Report: Having a dog in the internet news fight for 2012....

[JoshLowry]

I have had a catchy domain name for quite some time and never got around to doing anything with it.

I'd like to make this a community project and see where we can go with it.

The website is http://www.BreakingReport.com

It's a link aggregator that would compete with Drudge. Why are we better? Because we have editors from the left and right. A truely balanced news website. Not a Hannity and Colmes charade.

I think in order to get it off the ground, you appeal to the left and the right. Get editors (people who pick links) that are very polarized to the left or right (or pretend to be of that mindset) and then only allow them to edit the left or right side.

After traffic picks up you start educating the masses on how the false left-right paradigm works.

It uses a live rss feed from an excel document that can be shared via google docs. Pretty much as simple as it can get.

View it here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqVIB2bD7flYdGlyU010SW9rYnhtMzZjaEtsYUVib lE&hl=en

I'm thinking I can pick up a few editors from here and give it banner space for a few months, permanently if it gets some traffic. See where it goes. If it takes off then we should have a dog in the mainstream internet news site fight. If not, you can't say we didn't try. :)

Ideally we build up traffic on the site from sheeple on the left and right. Starting Q3 or Q4 2011 when our audience of sheep is at it's highest we slam liberty down everyone's throat.

Thoughts, requests to be an editor, comments welcome!

[GunnyFreedom]

HOT idea!

I see a few SEO link-bombs int he near future....

I'd volunteer immediately if not for running a campaign. Depending on how things go come November I may volunteer anyway. Problem is I am not left-right, I am locked-on Constitution.. ;)

[amy31416]

bump :)

[Bern]

I had a similar idea to do something like that with dsieve.com (a play on words - "the" sieve and/or deceive), but never got around to building it. I love that domain name. One day I'm going to develop it properly.

[Working Poor]

Go to newsvine.com and see if we could do something like that sight with what you have. I would help you edit and moderate if you need me.

[tpreitzel]

Why not?

A website to entice the "left" to look at the "right" opinion and the "right" to look at the "left" opinion.. In the process, demonstrate that neither position advocates the intent of our founders in establishing our constitutional republic.

[pacelli]

great idea bump

[evilfunnystuff]

http://images.zaazu.com/img/clap-animated-animation-clap-smiley-emoticon-000340-large.gif

[JoshLowry]

Go to newsvine.com and see if we could do something like that sight with what you have. I would help you edit and moderate if you need me.

A site like Newsvine would take tens of thousands of dollars and many months in development.

This is bare bones. Simple, easy, important news with polarized editors.


Why not?

A website to entice the "left" to look at the "right" opinion and the "right" to look at the "left" opinion.. In the process, demonstrate that neither position advocates the intent of our founders in establishing our constitutional republic.

Exactly, however we don't start our education campaign until we have a large amount of sheeple visiting. Eventually hitting on issues that are non-partisan and pro-citizen.

Part of this being a success is relying on the army of people that visit here. We have to propogate this out to the masses. I can't do it on my own, I'm one person and have no funds. You either need funds or lots of people. We've got one of those. 80,000+ unique visitors come to RPF every month.

[mediahasyou]

I would recommend not using the right/left propaganda tool. Balanced news is an unachievable ideal because there are too many different beliefs.

[JoshLowry]

I would recommend not using the right/left propaganda tool. Balanced news is an unachievable ideal because there are too many different beliefs.

I'm not really looking for balanced news. I'm looking to get the left and the right on the site.

We need masses of people to hijack from the left-right paradigm.

[tpreitzel]

I would recommend not using the right/left propaganda tool. Balanced news is an unachievable ideal because there are too many different beliefs.

IIUC, the goal isn't to strive for the ideal of balanced news, but rather to educate those holding non-constitutional beliefs in due time.

[mediahasyou]

I like the aggregator idea. Is it possible to make a commenting section?

[FrankRep]

Breaking Report vs. Drudge Report

FIGHT!!!

[GunnyFreedom]

I'm still wanting to do something with http://www.americanresistance.net/

[tpreitzel]

Yes, editors with strict constitutional views will be important as they can easily see through the false left/right paradigm. I forgot the guy behind the Freedom Report, but he'd be a good candidate. I've got the page bookmarked. For various reasons (e.g. health issues), I can't commit at this time as an editor, but I like the idea and reserve the honor to be an editor in the future ;). Personally, I think the concept is workable if members run with it. Thanks for starting the ball rolling!

[rancher89]

Very nice Josh.

I have no funds either, but I do have time, since I'm still unemployed....

Let me know if I can help

[mczerone]

I'm not really looking for balanced news. I'm looking to get the left and the right on the site.

We need masses of people to hijack from the left-right paradigm.

So are pro-war, pro-universal health insurance, anti-liberty news stories going to be listed on both sides?

[KramerDSP]

This is an out-of-this-world idea and I love it. Drudge Report meets The Huffington Post, in so many words.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is mostly going to appeal to the progressives and the constitutional conservatives/libertarians, right?

[johnrocks]

Great idea Josh, I wish I could contribute but I am a lousy wordsmith.

[pcosmar]

Editor,, not sure I am qualified. and I type with 2 fingers.

Commentary,, not sure I am "balanced".

However if you can use angry, blunt and sometimes rude honesty. well I would give it a shot.
:cool:

[GunnyFreedom]

This is an out-of-this-world idea and I love it. Drudge Report meets The Huffington Post, in so many words.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is mostly going to appeal to the progressives and the constitutional conservatives/libertarians, right?

Seems to me the idea is to appeal to the false paradigm (BOTH sides), and then to use textual NLP to draw them out of the false paradigm.

[axiomata]

Definitely like the idea as far as a drudge competitor goes.

[speciallyblend]

very interested in having liberty oriented links on my politics page for our local online news source and print magazine. to counter our local newspaper. Hopefully i break even in costs the 1st month......

we should be able to compete with our local paper,since they charge 50c and ours will be free with 1/3 the costs of advertising.

i want to use this paper/online daily news to report stories our local paper will not!!!

once the site is somewhat ready. i will show you. i already have sensiblecolorado director willing to write articles. we will run feeds for state and national and focus on local news and promoting businesses and the lifestyle of the mtns!!!

i will also have the colorado cfl director writing articles etc,

[Working Poor]

I'm not really looking for balanced news. I'm looking to get the left and the right on the site.

I am in no matter what Josh. I will use my social bookmarking and anything else I have to generate traffic. I don't have much money but, have lots of time to help. I can go around provoking people to come to your sight. I am pretty good at that kind of thing. You want "organic traffic" you will have lot's of that from your people here going to the other site. Plus you can get some good affiliate links and google ads to help you with raising funds.

Something I have wanted to talk about is maybe having a ebay site for here and the other site that your followers could donate items to and sell them to raise funds. It could get complicated but, it could work. Ebay lets you put links to your sites too so you could get extra exposure from them as well as sell things to help keep the lights on and pay the rent.

[JoshLowry]

I'm glad to hear the positive feedback. I really think our community can pull this off. It's going to take a lot of pushing, but we have a pretty unique grassroots network.

I'll start adding shared access to the excel file in google docs. You will need a gmail (google) account to be an editor.

Please PM me your gmail account name if you'd like to contribute. Even if you can only contribute a link every couple days I'd like to get you on board. We can always remove editors if it gets too chaotic.

I'll make a private forum for this project as well. If you PM me or have already expressed interest I will add you to the forum. We're going to need a promotion team. Can you imagine how much promoting 20 of us could do? What about 100? Let's make this our dog in the fight.

[nayjevin]

I'll help on all fronts. Still not totally clear on what types of articles you have in mind to post on each side. Will editors be scouring fox and whatnot for clearly biased articles?

Possibly it would be easier to have the left and right sections automatically aggregate several known sources. right would be fox and forbes, left would be cnn and huffpo for instance (and all in between).

Then the middle section would be done by us editors, adding good links that can appear independent or not necessarily either side. That way editors won't have to look through the garbage, but rather the good stuff.

In that case, I would love to be an editor.

[nayjevin]

BreakingReport.com
Drudging Truly Balanced News From Across the Web

meh?

[JoshLowry]

I'll help on all fronts. Still not totally clear on what types of articles you have in mind to post on each side. Will editors be scouring fox and whatnot for clearly biased articles?

Possibly it would be easier to have the left and right sections automatically aggregate several known sources. right would be fox and forbes, left would be cnn and huffpo for instance (and all in between).

Then the middle section would be done by us editors, adding good links that can appear independent or not necessarily either side. That way editors won't have to look through the garbage, but rather the good stuff.

In that case, I would love to be an editor.

Great, glad to have you on board!

I think if we have 10 editors or so, it won't take much scouring. I'd rather have just the 5 - 10 most important news pieces of the day on each side. Not every article out there.

I'm thinking that the links should be news articles that lean slightly left or right. They have that spin on them that attacks the other side. The left and right links are also the two opposing viewpoints on popular issues. Climate - Healthcare - Guns - Abortion - Religion - Etc

The middle is for everything else.

Starting Q3 or Q4 2011 when our audience of sheep is at it's highest we slam liberty down everyone's throat.

:)

[nayjevin]

Starting Q3 or Q4 2011

:)

What of having this plan out there for researchers to find?

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

good luck. having spent a tremendous amount of free time on a web framework for another project i have my own opinions on the "community"

[JoshLowry]

What of having this plan out there for researchers to find?

Will put it in the private forum shortly.

[Michigan11]

I like your idea and way of thinking Josh... I will definitely do all I can to help promote traffic to the site, should be able to help in that area. Love it!

[Romulus]

Best idea to date I've heard...

Think 'craigslist' with pictures style news, like Drudge.. simple, easy to read 100% news and info.

I think that site can not only complete, but BEAT Drudge...

Good luck, I'll help where I can.

[constituent]

I think why the ron paul grassroots has failed to deliver on projects like this is that "we" depend on folks dedicating their time day-in and day-out for free.99... Time is a resource, a commodity, and you can't sustain a quality site, a long-term project like this on faith and hope in the brotherhood of man.

It sounds like a great idea though, and I would love to help if and when possible. Just hit me up. :)

[constituent]

Possibly it would be easier to have the left and right sections automatically aggregate several known sources. right would be fox and forbes, left would be cnn and huffpo for instance (and all in between).

Then the middle section would be done by us editors, adding good links that can appear independent or not necessarily either side. That way editors won't have to look through the garbage, but rather the good stuff.

In that case, I would love to be an editor.

IMO, there are plenty of aggregators. If your site, Josh, is to stand out it will be for the content it generates. The aggregate stuff should be filler. I understand where you're coming from though, as it doesn't really cost anything to post-up a link... just kinda thinking out loud.

[TonySutton]

I do not think I would be able to contribute much as an editor as my free time is chaotic and my writing skills are not the greatest but I will certainly promote this site when it gets going. Everyone has their little corners of the internet where they can drop a link here and there to promote traffic.

Maybe we can have a contest to see who can generate the most traffic :P

Winner gets to their picture taken with Matt :D

[Working Poor]

Winner gets to their picture taken with Matt
I want my picture taken with Matt and the Judge...:D

[DirtMcGirt]

If you need some news with a far left slant check out this site... It actually has a lot of useful info and some of our stories and concerns overlap...

http://prorev.com/

[nayjevin]

IMO, there are plenty of aggregators. If your site, Josh, is to stand out it will be for the content it generates. The aggregate stuff should be filler. I understand where you're coming from though, as it doesn't really cost anything to post-up a link... just kinda thinking out loud.

You're right about that. What makes drudge special in that regard? He drudges what exactly? sensational, under the radar type stuff? thinking outloud myself.

[Captain Bryan]

This is cool, thanks.

[JoshLowry]

I've added 11 editors to the mix. If you only add one important link that you run across per day, then that is fantastic! I'm not looking for anyone to break a sweat contributing.

I've got a few good domain names forwarded to BreakingReport.com.

That means we already have a daily audience of about 500-550 unique visitors.

If you have extra domain names just sitting around in an account, forward them to BR.

[constituent]

You're right about that. What makes drudge special in that regard? He drudges what exactly? sensational, under the radar type stuff? thinking outloud myself.

He's mentioned on t.v.

You have to start small in that regard...

[Travlyr]

Yes, editors with strict constitutional views will be important as they can easily see through the false left/right paradigm. I forgot the guy behind the Freedom Report, but he'd be a good candidate. I've got the page bookmarked. For various reasons (e.g. health issues), I can't commit at this time as an editor, but I like the idea and reserve the honor to be an editor in the future ;). Personally, I think the concept is workable if members run with it. Thanks for starting the ball rolling!

This. And editors with considerable constitutional knowledge.

[JoshLowry]

This. And editors with considerable constitutional knowledge.

The site should not have a libertarian audience. They are already awake.

It's for the right and the left. People stuck in the false left-right paradigm. Then come Q3 or Q4 2011 right when politics is starting to hockey stick on people's radar we start educating those people about liberty while we have their ear.

[itshappening]

I think it needs to have its own distinctive look and feel but otherwise the idea is good

[Baptist]

I think it needs to have its own distinctive look and feel but otherwise the idea is good

Maybe change the font so it is not the same as Drudge.

[JoshLowry]

Changed it a bit.

[DirtMcGirt]

You should have some type of system in place for picture placement on right, left, and center columns(ex. Mon,Wed, Fri-one thumbnail picture on right 3 lines down and one on left 6 lines down) between stories.


There are some pretty good free sites to get stock pictures...

[JoshLowry]

You should have some type of system in place for picture placement on right, left, and center columns(ex. Mon,Wed, Fri-one thumbnail picture on right 3 lines down and one on left 6 lines down) between stories.

Yea we can change the format however we want.

I think consistency, clean, and simple are a good thing.

What about adding three small links at the bottom of the page to three different nearly nude women? Never any nude pics, but change those out every day. I'm not kidding either. It's also a god send for traffic.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/3/4/study-links-porn-to-politics-subscriptions/

[DirtMcGirt]

"Clean" should be 1st objective. I see your angle for the bottom links picture, not a constant women photo though - maybe rotation between nearly nude woman,twisted comic strip, weird art, etc...

[pcosmar]

Yea we can change the format however we want.

I think consistency, clean, and simple are a good thing.

What about adding three small links at the bottom of the page to three different nearly nude women? Never any nude pics, but change those out every day. I'm not kidding either. It's also a god send for traffic.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/3/4/study-links-porn-to-politics-subscriptions/

True. Sex sells.
No sense in ignoring reality.

[speciallyblend]

I've added 11 editors to the mix. If you only add one important link that you run across per day, then that is fantastic! I'm not looking for anyone to break a sweat contributing.

I've got a few good domain names forwarded to BreakingReport.com.

That means we already have a daily audience of about 500-550 unique visitors.

If you have extra domain names just sitting around in an account, forward them to BR.

hey josh, i am really liking what you have done here. this link will be included soon on our politics page for www.leadvillelifestyle.com this site you have done is perfect for what i want to do!!! thank you. my goal for our new local paper will be to spread liberty!!!

we want our community to view this

[teacherone]

www.buzzflash.com

lefty aggregator-- sometimes so left it tilts right--like a kucinich-paul internet love child...

[Travlyr]

Yea we can change the format however we want.

I think consistency, clean, and simple are a good thing.

What about adding three small links at the bottom of the page to three different nearly nude women? Never any nude pics, but change those out every day. I'm not kidding either. It's also a god send for traffic.


+1

[DirtMcGirt]

I love stories from this section of the NY Post- "weird but true"

http://www.nypost.com/news/weirdbuttrue/;jsessionid=A29D18D829D2E226AF901F75CC02D5D4

Also a daily recap of middle east events...
http://www.presstv.ir/

[nayjevin]

Would be cool to add a column for time/date posted.. was that already mentioned?

also there may be better ones than this but:

http://addthis.com

makes it easy to post to facebook, digg, twitter, email the page, and add it to stumbleupon.

[Mach]

I'll be in charge of the nearly nude women links at the bottom! :cool:

If anyone would like to play around with how the site would look if you changed something, use Firebug, a quick "lets see what that would look like if I did this" tool, without really changing it. A FireFox add-on.

http://getfirebug.com/

Comments would be a huge draw to both sides!

[speciallyblend]

I'll be in charge of the nearly nude women links at the bottom! :cool:

If anyone would like to play around with how the site would look if you changed something, use Firebug, a quick "lets see what that would look like if I did this" tool, without really changing it. A FireFox add-on.

http://getfirebug.com/

Comments would be a huge draw to both sides!

yeah comments spur debate. there should be comments and i agree put date/time article posted!!!!!!

[UtahApocalypse]

Josh, what about incorporating some of the features from the project you had a year or so ago that was similar to digg? you could vote but not just up/down. Also had comments. (sorry i forget the site now)

[Jordan]

Is there any way to make "News from the Left" and "News from the Right" stand out?

I've been wanting to buy that template, but $10 seemed too expensive :P

Also, count me in for promotion/SEO/whatever.

[JoshLowry]

Would be cool to add a column for time/date posted.. was that already mentioned?

also there may be better ones than this but:

http://addthis.com (http://addthis.com)

makes it easy to post to facebook, digg, twitter, email the page, and add it to stumbleupon.


Josh, what about incorporating some of the features from the project you had a year or so ago that was similar to digg? you could vote but not just up/down. Also had comments. (sorry i forget the site now)


yeah comments spur debate. there should be comments and i agree put date/time article posted!!!!!!

There is a "Last Site Update" ticker at the bottom of the page.

That was Votemotion. Too much time and money (mostly time) was spent on it.

I'd like to keep it styled like a craigslist or drudgereport.

Just a minimal/simple and easy to digest page.

[speciallyblend]

There is a "Last Site Update" ticker at the bottom of the page.

That was Votemotion. Too much time and money (mostly time) was spent on it.

I'd like to keep it styled like a craigslist or drudgereport.

Just a minimal/simple and easy to digest page.

no worries,i hear you;) what i can do is have a featured story from your site and add comments to the story on my site.

josh, this site is still in progress, www.leadvillelifestyle.com . i am thinking of putting your www.breakingreport.com link on all three politics tabs on my site under local/regional/national along with promoting www.campaignforliberty.com in ads on my monthly magazine(print)leadvillelifestyle promoting our daily online news source. my goal is to offer advertising at far lower costs then our weekly newspaper and offer ours free! effectively becoming the media in our county! doing what i can;) maybe take a left,right story and then middle story and let our locals comment on them. I need your help in making sure we don't cram liberty down there throats but make sure they eat it up;) as my site is now we have more work to do!!! but any suggestions you might have would be great. we are also running many rss news feeds for local/state and national!! we are getting great feedback from locals and businesses so far.
the print magazine will promote the town and businesses and college activities,ron paul republicans and dems running for office and our local online news etc etc focusing on the lifestyle,while the online news source will be daily news and also with twitter and social network features!!

i really want us to make folks think, be a cross between the westword and news!!

note this site has not launched yet,just letting rpf know what i am up to,we should be launching site and magazine by april 1st;) but the daily site could be finished as soon as next week.

EDIT: fonts and logo will change,nobody panic;)

kennys note,my wife is disabled,but is willing to do graphic and website(front/back) for liberty folks for liberty prices!!!!!

[mediahasyou]

I can't commit to becoming a reliable editor. Can I send in links/tips to editbreakingreport (at) gmail . com ?

[tpreitzel]

Personally, I think the limit should be no more than 45 total links across the 3 columns or ~ 15 links per column. The page is already looking too cluttered. Throw in some graphics and group links by content in each column as necessary as they eventually scroll down the column and off the page. Also, black text on white background is clearer than blue on white among ALL age groups, especially over the age of 45. ;)

[JoshLowry]

Personally, I think the limit should be no more than 45 total links across the 3 columns or ~ 15 links per column. The page is already looking too cluttered. Throw in some graphics and group links by content in each column as necessary as they eventually scroll down the column and off the page. Also, black text on white background is clearer than blue on white among ALL age groups, especially over the age of 45. ;)

Thanks for the input. Had planned on limiting it at some point. I think between 15 and 20 is about right. Not sure if graphics would clutter it more...

Will definitely change the font color.

We've had over 1,500 unique visits in the last 3 days. That pales compared to the traffic here, but it's a start!

:)

[Jordan]

http://www.codelifter.com/main/javascript/homepage1.html

For IE visitors, which is (unfortunately) the likely majority of traffic.

[devil21]

Im interested in getting involved with the site, particularly for "night shift" work. PM me J.

[itshappening]

I still like the idea but we need ways to build traffic and get people to use and like it so keep tweaking

[rancher89]

I like the improvements.

Sex does sell, IMHO just don't make it "too sexy" or someone's Mom will ixnay the link...grins!

[american.swan]

Make it more twitter friendly.

Like this http://gata.org/node/8422 I can tweet THIS
How can I tweet what BreakingReport.com has?

[DirtMcGirt]

when I type BreakingReport.com in google box not popping up on 1st page...
I get RPF thread and twitter- is this normal?


Tried it the next morning and it showed up 1st on my google list...

[tpreitzel]

Thanks for the input. Had planned on limiting it at some point. I think between 15 and 20 is about right. Not sure if graphics would clutter it more...

Will definitely change the font color.

We've had over 1,500 unique visits in the last 3 days. That pales compared to the traffic here, but it's a start!

:)

Some graphics and smart grouping of related items tend to break-up the mass of text and allow the eye to find a link more quickly as does high-contrast black text on a white background.

As far as headings, play around with them periodically like Google does. An occasional colorful background on headings breaks the monotony of using all text.

You're off to a great start. As you know, the key to success is persistence. :)

[american.swan]

when I type BreakingReport.com in google box not popping up on 1st page...
I get RPF thread and twitter- is this normal?

That's not good.

[speciallyblend]

josh are you going to add rss feeds???

[nayjevin]

when I type BreakingReport.com in google box not popping up on 1st page...
I get RPF thread and twitter- is this normal?


Tried it the next morning and it showed up 1st on my google list...

yes, i was glad to see it's up near the front now.

[JoshLowry]

Dunno, been swamped with work so I havent been able to put much into over the last 2 weeks.

If anyone wants to keep it updated, have at it. I'll contribute when I can. It has an audience, so it's not like you are updating a chalkboard in the desert. 10,000 unique visitors since March 10th.

[speciallyblend]

Dunno, been swamped with work so I havent been able to put much into over the last 2 weeks.

If anyone wants to keep it updated, have at it. I'll contribute when I can. It has an audience, so it's not like you are updating a chalkboard in the desert. 10,000 unique visitors since March 10th.

kewl, well i(well i should say my wife) will run a link for now,but once you have rss feeds going let me know. then we can run direct news feeds for your site in my politics section;)

i was just curious, thanks josh! we are getting a good amount of hits and haven't really started yet:) for leadvillelifestyle