Fledgling User-driven Political Website Helps Reveal Media Bias

An innovative new web site launched last month exposes bias in political coverage from both the mainstream media and the blogosphere. The site reveals the political slant for both individual articles and press outlets as a whole. The site, called Skewz, (www.skewz.com), was founded by Vipul Vyas in 2006 with the goal of finding sensible common ground in political dialogue. The site helps inform voters about issues in an unbiased way.

“Most online political sites offer a wealth of information, but they are difficult to sort through and often have political agendas,” says Vipul Vyas, founder of Skewz. “Skewz sorts the news so readers don’t have to. It’s a one-stop resource to see coverage from both sides of the political divide.”

Skewz has simplified the process of sorting news with a user-driven site that includes charts and graphs showing how major news sources are covering various issues of the political debate. There’s also a comparative chart (compiled by reader feedback) so users can see how each media outlet stacks up against the rest.

Registered users can rate anything on the Internet in terms of its political bias whether that’s liberal or conservative. Users can also submit and comment on political news from media sources (articles, videos, picture, editorials, etc.) or blogs and rate those submissions in terms of political bias.

“With nearly one third of the electorate declaring themselves as ‘moderate’ or ‘independent,’ every vote in this election matters,” says Jonathan Baciu, co-founder of Skewz. “Whether you want to validate your opinion or challenge it, Skewz offers a wealth of resources to easily understand and find information on either side of the debate.”

The purpose of Skewz is to democratize political news by meaningfully sorting through it - without having one editor or one small group of people decide what political news was important and what wasn’t. Like Digg.com, Del.icio.us, and Reddit, Skewz compiles all the news in one place, but Skewz is completely specialized in political topics.Politics Meets Social Networking

Originally founded to provide a forum for intelligent political debate free from strong-armed political persuasion and super charged emotional rhetoric, skewz.com has grown into a unique and integrated site that (unlike many political sites) provides news and commentary from both sides of the political divide in a quantified, intuitive, and easy to read format.. Users can see a range of stories covering a given topic from both a liberal and conservative perspective. Skewz.com saves time by providing readers with the information they need to quickly and informatively develop a holistic perspective on an issue.”

“Skewz.com is shifting the way voters determine their political allegiances by exposing them to both sides of a debate in an interactive manner,” says Vyas. “We also hope it will increase accountability in the media. We want to let people rate the media like everything else today on the Internet.”

Skews vs Microsoft Blews

The market for blogosphere analysis technology is growing. Recently, Microsoft announced that it is planning to launch a similar project called Blews that uses political blogs to categorize news stories according to their reception in the conservative and liberal blogospheres.

While Blews and Skewz both categorize news stories according to their reception in the conservative and liberal blogospheres, one of the key differentiators between the sites is that Blews is one-sided, static and passive, whereas Skewz is user-driven and dynamic. Skewz lets users participate in the rating mechanism, giving the user a more interactive and comprehensive experience. Skewz stresses participation which, after all, is what politics is all about.

About Founder Vipul VyasVipul attended the University of Virginia and received an MBA from Dartmouth College. Prior to his start up work, Vipul worked as a management consultant for Booz, Allen & Hamilton and Price Waterhouse Coopers. Vipul has worked in Silicon Valley for the past 8 years in successful start-ups such as BeVocal, a speech recognition technology start up which was recently acquired.

While working, he bantered with his coworkers for years on the topic of media bias through email. Some of these email threads would grow to be over 200-300 responses long. With this in mind, Vipul decided to leverage his knowledge and passion for politics and technology and develop a site where others can rate and comment on the credibility and bias of the news just like he has for many years with his coworkers.

Source: Skewz.com

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