Have you ever read a purported news story that sounded suspiciously like a press release?

Now, the The U.K.’s Media Standards Trust has updated its tool for determining how close that story is to a news release.

The tool is called “Churnalism” and is available at churnalism.com. It’s a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. Called a “churn engine,” it runs in the background to distinguish journalism from “churnalism” (about which, more in a minute). It operates while you’re reading a news story or you can go to the Churnalism site and enter a URL or some text to determine how closely the story matches a news release — if at all — as well as where the “churn” comes from and it will display  the churned text. Continue reading →