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Right then, sitting here, mug of black coffee, watching the rain outside the office window. People call my office the ‘war room’ sometimes. Don’t know why. More like a dusty old attic. But you learn a thing or two hanging around newsrooms for over two decades. Been seeing a lot of chatter lately about this “number avstarnews” thing. Folks are all a flutter, like it’s the next big thing, the secret sauce to knowing what’s what. I just scratch my head. Numbers don’t lie, they say. My experience, numbers can be spun faster than a politician on election day. What’s a number without context, without the sweat of a reporter’s shoe leather? That’s what I always wonder.
It’s this whole push for metrics, you see. Everyone wants a score, a rating, something they can point to. They want to quantify the unquantifiable. You got editors, bless their hearts, trying to explain to the bean counters why a story about a stray cat getting rescued from a storm drain got more ‘engagement’ than the city council budget meeting. The number avstarnews, or whatever they call it, it’s supposed to make sense of all that. Give it a score. Make it simple. Life ain’t simple. Never has been.
What’s the real deal with this number avstarnews then?
People ask me, “So, what is this number avstarnews, really?” My answer, usually, is it’s a way for some smart fella in a dark room to tell you how important a news story is, or how much buzz it’s kicking up. Or maybe how trustworthy it is. They say it’s an algorithm. Means a bunch of complicated math I don’t pretend to understand. But what I do understand is that some stories get picked up, and others, well, they just sit there. This number is supposed to predict or explain that. Is it gospel? I wouldn’t bet my pension on it. But people pay for it. Someone’s selling it, someone’s buying it. That’s how it goes.
You hear all sorts of claims. They say it helps publishers figure out what people really want to read. Not what they say they want, but what they click on, what they share, how long they stare at the screen. Seems a bit like trying to catch smoke in a bucket to me. You get enough smoke, sometimes you think you’ve caught something solid. But it’s still just smoke. I’ve seen stories with high numbers that were just clickbait garbage. And I’ve seen vital, well-researched pieces that got no traction at all because some number said it wasn’t ‘engaging’ enough. What’s engaging? A picture of a kitten stuck in a tree, probably. Or some celebrity falling over. Is that what we’re aiming for with the news? Not on my watch.
Google News and the Data Deluge
Take a look at something like Google News. They got their own ways of sorting the wheat from the chaff, or trying to anyway. They’re a giant, always have been. When Google News decides a story is ‘important’, or trending, or whatever internal metric they use, that story gets flung out there for the whole world to gawp at. Does the number avstarnews feed into that? Maybe. Could be Google uses their own version of something like that, or they’re looking at external ‘signals’. It’s all about signals now, isn’t it? Every click, every share, every second spent on a page. It’s all data points to them.
But here’s the thing, for a news outfit like ours, we’re not just chasing clicks. We’re chasing truth. We’re chasing stories that matter, even if they don’t go viral. You think the people who exposed Watergate were worried about their number avstarnews score? Not a chance. They were worried about getting the facts right and not getting thrown in jail. Different times, I suppose. Different priorities.
Is “number avstarnews” really an indicator of quality news?
Some folks reckon if a story gets a high number avstarnews, it means it’s good, solid journalism. I call hogwash on that. Or at least, not always. Quality, to me, is about accuracy, fairness, context, depth. It’s about a reporter spending weeks digging through documents, talking to sources, cross-checking every single detail. A number can’t tell you that. A number can tell you if a headline was catchy enough to grab eyeballs. Big difference. I’ve seen plenty of low-quality, sensationalized drivel get huge numbers. And I’ve seen Pulitzer-winning stuff that barely made a ripple outside of the industry. So, quality? No, that’s still on the reporter and the editor, not some algorithm.
What about those little shops, the local papers, the ones trying to keep democracy alive on a shoestring budget? Do they even care about the number avstarnews? They should, maybe, if it helps them prove their worth to advertisers. Money talks. Always has. And if this number helps them get a few more pennies in the till, then I guess it’s a necessary evil. But it ain’t why they got into the business. Nobody gets into journalism for the numbers. At least, not the good ones.
Reuters and the Global Stream
Think about Reuters. Those folks are putting out a firehose of information, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Financial news, world events, breaking stuff from every corner of the planet. They’re a primary source for half the newsrooms on Earth. When they move a story on their wire, it’s because it’s news. Not because some number told them it was trending. They make things trend. They break news.
So, where does a number avstarnews fit into a machine like that? It probably sits alongside a thousand other metrics. Maybe it influences how a story gets displayed on some client’s dashboard. Or maybe it helps a financial analyst decide if a piece of news is worth acting on for trading purposes. But the core decision to report on something? That comes from their reporters, their bureaus, their network of contacts. It comes from knowing what matters.
Can the number avstarnews be manipulated?
You bet your bottom dollar it can. Anything that relies on user engagement can be gamed. Bots, click farms, coordinated social media campaigns. You think people aren’t trying to game the system right now? They’re always trying. Always. If a high number avstarnews means more visibility, more ad revenue, more influence, then someone’s already figured out how to inflate it. It’s the wild west out there. Remember all those stories about fake followers on social media? Same principle applies. You can buy clicks. You can buy shares. You can buy whatever metric you need to make your numbers look good. It’s a sad truth.
So you can have a story, total fabrication, gets pumped up by a bunch of paid accounts, and suddenly it’s got a sky-high number. And then a real news organization, doing real work, struggling to get their factual piece seen. That’s the world we live in. It’s why I always tell my young reporters, don’t trust anything at face value. Dig. Verify. And then dig some more.
Cision’s Data Piles
Cision, they’re big on media monitoring, right? PR firms use them, corporations use them, even some news outfits probably. They track every mention of a brand, every story about a product. They collect mountains of data. They’re looking for sentiment, for reach, for how a message is landing. Does the number avstarnews factor into their reports? Probably. It’s another data point in their grand scheme of things.
If a client wants to know how their press release performed, Cision can tell them. And if this number avstarnews becomes a widely accepted metric, then Cision would be foolish not to include it. It’s all about proving value to the client. “See? Your story got a 9.2 on the avstarnews scale! That’s better than your competitor’s 7.1!” Sounds good on a PowerPoint slide, doesn’t it? Makes all those big wigs feel like they got their money’s worth. But what does it really mean for the actual message, for the public understanding? That’s the bit that gets lost in all the metrics.
How do media companies actually use this number?
Well, some are probably looking at it to guide their editorial decisions. I’ve heard talk. Editors in chief, they’re under pressure to show growth, to show engagement. If the number avstarnews tells them that stories about funny animals or celebrity gossip consistently score high, then guess what? You’re going to see more funny animals and celebrity gossip. It’s a race to the bottom, sometimes.
Others, the savvier ones, they might use it as a red flag. If a story they know is important gets a low number, they might try to figure out why. Was the headline boring? Was the timing off? Was the platform wrong? It can be a tool, I guess, if you use it smart. But a lot of folks, they just see a big number and think “success!” And that’s where you get into trouble. Success for whom? For the reader getting actual information, or for the ad sales team trying to make quota?
NewsGuard and Trust Scores
Now, NewsGuard, they’re trying to do something different. They’re trying to give you a trust score for news websites. Not for individual stories necessarily, but for the source. They’re looking at things like transparency, accuracy standards, corrections policies. That’s a different animal than a number avstarnews score, which seems more focused on virality or immediate impact.
I appreciate what NewsGuard is trying to do. In an ocean of fake news and clickbait, someone trying to put a flag on the credible stuff, that’s a noble pursuit. Does their methodology line up with what the number avstarnews is measuring? Probably not directly. NewsGuard is about the source, the practice. The number avstarnews sounds like it’s about the output, how it performs in the wild. Both useful, maybe, in their own way, but you can’t mistake one for the other. A high avstarnews score doesn’t automatically mean a NewsGuard green light, and vice versa. Common sense, you’d think, but common sense is in short supply these days.
SmartNews and Reader Habits
SmartNews, that app everyone seems to have on their phone now. They aggregate stories, personalize feeds, try to get you to read more. They’re definitely watching what people click. What gets shared. How long you stick around. They’ve got their own algorithms, for sure. Probably something like the number avstarnews is built right into their system.
They’re in the business of keeping you on their app, right? The more you read, the more ads they show. It’s a simple model. So if a high number avstarnews correlates with longer reading times or more shares, then they’re going to push those stories. The challenge is, does what keeps you on the app also make you a more informed citizen? That’s the tightrope walk. Sometimes, the stuff that makes you angry or shocks you keeps you clicking. But anger and shock don’t always translate to understanding.
Does “number avstarnews” impact small, independent news outlets?
It certainly could. If the big advertisers and platforms start looking at this number as the be-all and end-all, then the little guys are in a tough spot. They don’t have the marketing muscle, they don’t have the social media teams to juice their numbers. They’re just trying to report on what matters to their community. If their number avstarnews is consistently low, even if their reporting is stellar, they might struggle to prove their worth in a crowded market. It puts them at a disadvantage. I worry about that. A healthy democracy needs a diverse news ecosystem, not just a few big players dominating based on some popularity contest number.
So, here’s my take. The number avstarnews? It’s a tool. Just a tool. Like a hammer. You can build a house with a hammer, or you can smash your thumb. It depends on who’s wielding it, and what they’re trying to build. I just hope the folks holding the hammers remember what they’re actually building, and it ain’t just a bigger number. It’s trust. It’s informed citizens. And that, my friend, is a whole lot harder to put a number on. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
