{"id":337246,"date":"2017-03-31T05:47:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T21:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1471144"},"modified":"2017-03-31T05:47:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T21:47:17","slug":"with-500k-in-financing-the-perspective-wants-to-unite-a-divided-media-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/with-500k-in-financing-the-perspective-wants-to-unite-a-divided-media-world\/","title":{"rendered":"With $500K in financing, The Perspective wants to unite a divided media world"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

How did a former comedy writer and marketing executive wind up tackling the thorny problem of our politically fragmented modern society?<\/p>\n

For Daniel Ravner, the 41-year-old founder of The Perspective<\/a>, the answer was in the last election.<\/p>\n

The concept is relatively simple \u2014 basically create a media and opinion site that is predicated on the now-quaint notion of the fairness doctrine, where equal time is given to opposing viewpoints.<\/p>\n

While that sounds radical, the fairness doctrine in media was a federal standard for decades until it was abolished under the Reagan administration in 1987.<\/p>\n

Revoking that requirement opened the door for the opinion-based media that has dominated airwaves, television current events channels (I\u2019m not calling them news \u2014 fake or otherwise) and, most importantly for this conversation, the web.<\/p>\n

When the site posted to Product Hunt\u00a0<\/a>it racked up over 723 upvotes and positive reviews from the site\u2019s app-watchers.<\/p>\n

The idea behind the site, says Ravner, was to open people\u2019s minds. \u201cIt was to show them the perspective they are missing based on fake news or skewed news,\u201d says Ravner. \u201cMost people go to news websites that agree with them to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Perspective founder, Daniel Ravner<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While well-intentioned, Ravner\u2019s statement underscores the site\u2019s main problem. It accepts and normalizes the argument that there\u00a0are<\/em> two sides to a news story. In many cases, there aren\u2019t. There\u2019s a fact set that is either true or false.\u00a0It\u2019s only in the last 20-odd-years that the relationship between facts and truth was called into question.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drive to personalization makes commercial sense,\u201d Ravner continues. \u201cI don\u2019t think that Google or Facebook are trying to do evil. The internet, and those companies specifically, are so big that their filters are bound to have side effects\u2026 and the side effects are the filter bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravner designed his site to combat that in three ways. The first is to present opinion pieces side by side (much like the fantastic Wall Street Journal feature: Blue Feed, Red Feed<\/a>), called Trending Perspectives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In addition to the perspective pieces (more on them in a second), The Perspective also presents what it calls Essentials<\/a>, which lay out the pros and cons of a particular position.<\/p>\n

Each of these two features emphasize a balanced perspective where the site\u2019s writers try to give equal weight to every argument that\u2019s presented.<\/p>\n

I think you can see the problem. In many cases, as I said before, the different positions that the site selects don\u2019t actually deserve equal weight. The methodology that it uses for selecting its featured pieces, and the sites that it privileges, are sometimes odd.<\/p>\n

Contrasting a National Journal piece (a fairly conservative site) with the basically middle-of-the-road USA Today isn\u2019t actually putting things of similar tenor in opposition, and can make one or the other publication look more strident by comparison.<\/p>\n

The third feature that the company\u2019s new site has is a challenge option, which allows a reader to reach out to their personal connections and challenge them with an article from the site that may run against the presumed assumptions of the reader.<\/p>\n

Ravner said that other products are on the horizon, as well.<\/p>\n

He also takes issue with the characterization of the site as making false equivalencies and sees himself as one of the last watchers on the wall of decency in the public sphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel the world is going to a bad place,\u201d says Ravner. \u201cWe\u2019re not investigative journalism. We just try to find the stories or the facts or the arguments that can open people\u2019s minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mission is one that attracted the attention of the Rimokh Trust, a Los Angeles-based family office that committed $500,000 to Ravner\u2019s project.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must understand that we\u2019re trying to do something that\u2019s right and good. The Perspective<\/em> has a mission and we have figured out the best ways we feel the mission should be completed,\u201d said Ravner. \u201cWe have an editorial team that works really hard to find what we think makes the story bigger and in a way that can make people open their minds and see things in a way that they wouldn\u2019t see if they didn\u2019t look for a different angle, which they usually don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Bryce Durbin\/TechCrunch<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" How did a former comedy writer and marketing executive wind up tackling the thorny problem of our politically fragmented modern society? For Daniel Ravner, the 41-year-old founder of The Perspective, the answer was in the last election. The concept is relatively simple — basically create a media and opinion site that is predicated on the now-quaint notion of the fairness doctrine. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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