News Leaders Association Partners With Vett Inc. to Make Cx Tool Available to NLA Members

The New York-based startup Vett Inc. has joined forces with the News Leaders Association. The partnership offers up to 12 NLA members free access to VettNews Cx, a workflow automation tool that improves the corrections and reader feedback process for news publishers. 

The first 12 members to sign up will receive free access throughout 2021, while other members will be able to use the product at a discounted rate. The discount program is may continue for NLA members in future years. 

“A core tenant of NLA’s mission is to empower news leaders to build diverse, sustainable newsrooms that use fact-based information to inform the communities they serve,” said Fran Reilly, NLA executive director. “Partnering with Vettnews Cx provides our members with a tool to streamline the corrections process and further build trust with their communities.” 

Improving the corrections process has the potential to help revive public trust in the news media. A 2018 Knight Foundation report revealed that nearly 90 percent of citizens say their trust in news organizations depends on newsrooms’ commitment to accuracy and willingness to openly correct mistakes. 

In response, the journalists and technologists at Vett Inc. built a simple, effective tool to help news organizations improve their process of correcting mistakes and to involve the public in doing so. 

The VettNews team installs a block of code that places a button at the bottom of every article to invite reader feedback on factual accuracy, grammatical mistakes, context and bias. The feedback flows into the Cx dashboard, which allows newsrooms to improve the speed, order and efficiency of reviewing corrections requests and making changes if necessary. With customized and automated email templates, the Cx tool improves communication with readers in each critical step of the corrections process. The system also has potential to reduce newsroom liability by documenting and professionalizing response to complaints. 

A more detailed explanation of the product can be viewed in this demonstration at the 2020 Investigative Reporters & Editors conference. And a 2-minute video here also shows how the product works. 

Editor & Publisher recently featured Vett Inc. and how it is helping publishers manage corrections in a new way.

With its technology, the team at Vett Inc. aims to help improve audience loyalty, trust and engagement for newsrooms. 

“Leaders in the news business are looking for simple, effective ways to improve the accuracy of their news report and engage the public in a positive way while doing so,” said Paul Glader, CEO and co-founder of Vett Inc. “NLA is creating a great possibility for its members to do just that by using the VettNews Cx tool to manage corrections and reader feedback.” 

The partnership comes on the cusp of several recent partnerships between Vett Inc. and other industry organizations, including the Radio Television Digital News Association and Mutual Insurance Company Limited, a major libel insurer for North American news publishers. 

Vett Inc. is currently funded by a Knight Foundation grant and is in test use at more than a dozen college and professional news outlets, including the student newspapers at West Virginia University, Bethel University in Minnesota and at Poynter.org and The Tampa Bay Times. 

Vett Inc. is a Delaware C-Corp made of journalists and technologists and led by Paul Glader, a former reporter at The Wall Street Journal and journalism professor at The King’s College in New York City. The team at Vett Inc. / VettNews have received funding and mentorship from the NYC Media Lab Combine accelerator, the Knight Foundation and other support and partnership from Trusting News, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Feliciano Center at Montclair State University.   

News Leaders Association empowers journalists at all levels with the training, support and networks they need to lead and transform diverse, sustainable newsrooms. Formerly the ASNE and APME, the newly combined organization fosters the highest standards of trustworthy journalism, advocates for a free and independent press, and nurtures the next generation of news leaders. For more information, please visit newsleaders.org.