The Media Standards Trust
This not-for-profit body, which aims to foster the highest standards in news journalism, sought a dynamic online system to engage internet users and encourage debate.
www.mediastandardstrust.org
Our challenge
The Media Standards Trust was formed in 2007 to provide an independent forum - or 'public space' - where people can respond to, review and reflect on the news.
Engaging internet users is central to the Trust's strategy and, following a competitive tender, we were briefed to:
- Create a website that highlights what the Media Standards Trust does and why
- Bring together a range of information about media standards in one online hub
- Promote the Trust's research and pilot projects and encourage input from interested parties
- Provoke meaningful public debate around key media issues among a variety of audiences, including students, journalists and policymakers
What we did
Working closely with a third party Web designer who devised the look and feel of the website, we:
- Created an interactive site providing information, news feeds and community features, such as blogs and debates
- Integrated our custom content management system so that one Trust employee can keep the site updated quickly and easily, including post-moderation of the online debates - this is key for an organisation that has limited in-house resource
The results
We planned, created and tested the website and content management system within a matter of months. The Media Standards Trust is now running a number of exciting web
initiatives including another Simplicity website The Orwell Prize for excellence in journalism and writing.
The Trust commented that it was particularly impressed by the way we listened to the brief, responded to new suggestions during the project, and handled due diligence.
Martin Moore, Director of the Media Standards Trust, adds:
"It's our goal to raise the bar in terms of encouraging constructive debate about standards in the media. The online debating tool and other community features like polls that Simplicity produced are successfully engaging our visitors and encouraging them to come back to the site."
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