Going Forth, Again

Allow us to reintroduce ourselves. We’re Forth, and we’re a new kind of news site, featuring updates from primary sources as news breaks.  

When we started Forth, we aimed to create a platform that broke away from the anachronistic format constraints that journalism has clung to, and create the news feed for trusted news.  That’s still our goal, but along the way we’ve learned a lot, and are taking a slightly different approach in getting there.  

In our time in newsrooms, we spent a lot of time checking and sorting through various statements and other updates that popped in our inboxes.  Pool reports, press releases, court opinions, emergency alerts; we sorted through them and raced to republish. 

These updates are often inherently newsworthy, but the process meant we were performing an increasingly unnecessary gatekeeping role.  It slowed publication, allowed for a potential perception of additional spin or bias, and contributed to unnecessary overhead, taking journalists away from doing real reporting.  

We wanted a better way. 

Forth constantly checks a growing list of sources, leveraging AI to group updates into individual stories, and doing a first pass at summarizing and determining urgency.  If this sounds like an aggregator, it’s similar, but with one big difference. 

Most news aggregators crawl news outlets’ websites, finding and linking to already published articles.  Someone still has to see the update, write it up, and publish before the aggregator can find it. Forth just takes that original update and publishes, giving our users the same material journalists use. No gatekeeping, no spin, and no delay. 

Still,  AI and automation cannot replace journalists. No chatbot will ever be able to develop trust and cultivate a rapport with sources.  Algorithms cannot perform investigations, ask uncomfortable questions, or be on the ground in the wake of a disaster.  We understand that, and will include original reporting from some select, trusted journalists and outlets.  (If you are a reporter or lead a newsroom, we’d love to talk.)

For those who need to monitor specific sources, search archives, or have fine grained notifications sent to various destinations, we will soon offer Forth Pro. (Sign up for the beta test.)

Please download our app, follow us on social media, or bookmark our website, and let us know what you think. We’re excited to offer a new way of looking at the news, and can’t wait to go Forth, together.