Announcing: NewsCord

Finding a consistently reliable news source is a daunting task. Finding a consistently reliable source on news in Palestine? Near impossible.

Enter NewsCord, a groundbreaking platform designed to surface biases in mainstream media and encourage readers to break away from their siloed sources.   

School friends turned co-founders, Nima Akram, Wail Ali, and Hugo Brightling converged on the concept of NewsCord at a November Hack for Gaza event hosted by Deen Developers, a UK-based community of founders, techies and creatives. Witnessing the events in Gaza and subsequent media coverage shattered their belief in the impartiality of traditional news. The realization that many people rely solely on sources like the BBC – which largely limit coverage to pro-Israel narratives on its digital platforms – spurred them to action.

Complementary backgrounds in data science, UX, and marketing, gave the team a unique advantage in tackling this challenge. Using AI technology, NewsCord aggregates, summarizes and compares hundreds of stories, providing users with a holistic view of the news landscape on any topic. The platform can be accessed via two primary functionalities: a Chrome extension and a website. Users can install the Chrome extension to instantly access additional sources while reading an article. They can also copy and paste any article into Newscord.org to generate recommended alternatives (like Oct7FactCheck.com) or explore trending news topics. 

“There is always the potential for mistakes at the beginning,” says Nima, “but our large language model is becoming more fine-tuned. Once we reach critical mass, no one will be able to catch up with what the model is able to do.”

As a Tech for Palestine (T4P) partner project, NewsCord represents a big step forward in fostering informed discourse and challenging prevailing narratives. The platform's competitive advantage lies in its continuous improvement process, driven by user feedback and a sophisticated generative AI model. As NewsCord gains momentum, and users, its capabilities will continue to evolve, solidifying its utility as a go-to source for accurate news. 

Looking ahead, the team hopes to amplify its impact by increasing engagement within the Tech for Palestine community. As it gains traction, they hope to assemble a NewsCord power user group who share their passion for the mission and want to help grow the platform.

To take NewsCord for a test drive, visit the website or download it on Chrome. If you’d like to get involved, drop a note to the team on their project page!