Today we opened Rooted News, a free news reader built only from independent newsrooms, with full coverage of the US midterms. It brings together 338 outlets, at least one in every U.S. state and Washington, DC, as well as around the world.
Rooted groups pieces about the same event into one story, and the outlets behind it are its 'roots'. A reader can open any story and see every outlet's version side by side, with one catch. This is not intended for mainstream outlets, who are owned by conglomerates.
Rooted started as an internal tool, that we would use to follow stories in house. We wanted to have a Ground News type of environment, but without the noise and misleading reporting that has become so common in mainstream reporting. The tool worked so well, that it felt silly to keep it away from the public.
Rooted never shows a full article, it directs users towards the full article. This is our attempt to drive users towards independent outlets, and hopefully, help prop up the independent journalism scene as a whole. We do not run ads, and currently plan on funding this entirely ourselves.
Beyond just reading the news, we had the realisation that we had also created a great place for people to discuss the stories, and without oversight from Meta or other companies who police our every word.
Readers can follow topics, outlets and single stories, and get an email when another outlet joins a story they follow. They can vote pieces up or down, comment on any piece and amplify what they want other readers to see.
Outlets can post on Rooted directly, and their posts sit beside their reporting on their profiles. Outlets keep control of their pages, should they want to claim them.
Crucially, users can only comment and join the conversation. We wanted to shut down the chance of misinformation being spread on this app, so if you want to post, you will need to apply as an independent journalist. After a review, you may be offered an outlet page.
We currently use RSS feeds to pull stories from outlets, and any listed outlet can claim its page for free, post to it, see how many readers Rooted sends them and choose whether its pictures appear at full size. An outlet that wants its logo, its pictures or its whole listing taken down can ask, and we will remove it. The first outlets have already claimed their pages, and we will be approaching all outlets in the coming days.
Truthfully, we hadn't planned on this being released now, but it's a crucial time for the USA with the midterms coming up. As things stand, the mainstream media get the bulk of that coverage by default, we want to do what little we can to help change that.
The Election page carries every Senate and governor race from our midterms guide, with the calls as our results desk makes them and the official counts as states release them.
Rooted is free at rooted.news, with Google sign-in or email, and an Android app is in testing that readers can join from the site.
* This website is developed by Crust News, but will not be used to advertise Crust News, or to push Crust News content. Crust News will be treated the same as any outlet, and will be explicitly removed from features like "Sprouting outlets" where we will be featuring the most seen outlets on the site.
