We want everyone to experience the quality of the internet, not (just) its quantity.
That’s easily said but hard to do. The internet is set up to reward fleeting attention, and we need new systems to change that.
Our first tool is an algorithm that looks for articles with real, substantive reporting that is worth people’s time and maybe even worth their subscription.
Hello, this is Christopher Brennan. You might remember me from my time as Editor-in-Chief of the Deepnews Digest, where I sent out newsletters with articles that had been highlighted as quality. That project ended this summer, though you are now receiving this email because I think you may be interested in new work to improve quality online.
I have now founded Overtone.ai with my colleague Philip Allin, and we plan to make the internet a better place not just by sharing quality articles in newsletters, but in particular by changing the systems that govern how people are connected to news.
We use our technology, a new machine learning model, to help publishers, analytics providers, media monitoring companies, and advertisers. They can then sort through the huge amount of content online and use it better to generate subscriptions, engage readers, and disincentivize garbage news.
At the same time, Philip and I believe that, in addition to finding a solution for our current situation, it is important to have broader conversations about moving away from clicks and shares.
We want to fundamentally reorganise the internet around qualitative metrics.
That’s why we are sending out this newsletter. It is not meant to be a “digest” of the week’s news but a different way to look at what is being written out there, focusing on angles and different dimensions of news that you might not be seeing if you get your news through social media, an app or one trusted news site.
This first week takes on a topic that affects everyone, the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Many of the stories that have come out of the event have been short blurbs about the deals that have been made and signed on to (or not signed on to in some cases). But the topic of climate change is one that sometimes takes more time and effort to explain well, whether through statistics to explain acidity in drinking water or the personal story of climate activists. This week’s pieces, gathered by our new algorithm, show some of that in-depth work being done.
Quality stories you might have missed that our algorithm suggests:
Climate Change Is Acidifying and Contaminating Drinking Water and Alpine Ecosystems - Scientific American
$1bn plan to save critical Congo Basin forest could allow more logging, leaked documents reveal - The Independent
Is it green or forever toxic? Nuclear rift at climate talks - Associated Press
Inuit youth claim space to seek climate resiliency in the Arctic - National Observer
Countries’ climate pledges built on flawed data, Post investigation finds - Washington Post
How Boris Johnson's pledge to end forest destruction ignores 25m trees Britain is burning for biomass - The Daily Telegraph
Yacht Full of Climate Scientists Plots Giant Sea Gate to Save Manhattan - Bloomberg
N.J. Offshore Wind: A high-stakes game of NIMBY, where backyards include a $6M beachfront palace - NJ.com
Washington wineries considering dramatic changes for climate change - Crosscut
Fears of ‘water conflicts’ as climate change grips Iraq - Al Jazeera