“Don’t Trust the News? Join the Social Media Revolution!” This is one of the taglines we often use for NewsCred. It's a short, catchy, tongue-in-cheek slogan that’s meant to provoke. I can assure you that it certainly succeeds in provoking! We’ve received numerous e-mails and comments from journalists who claim that “mistrust” of the news media industry is not well-founded, and perhaps out of line. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of journalists who’ve been following the NewsCred story have supported us and partnered with us to make a positive change together. This post is for the first category of journalists who are unconvinced, so I thought I should clear things up a bit. We love reading the news, and we love the journalists who provide us with that news. We don’t mistrust journalists. We believe the blood, sweat and tears that go into producing an amazing news story is one of the finest examples of service to humanity. We all have a moral obligation to help improve the world around us, and a great journalist does that on a daily basis by helping his or her fellow citizens make informed opinions and choices about the people and events that surround them.

Of course, there is a flip side to that warm and fuzzy feeling. As I have said before, with great power comes great responsibility. Because access to credible and accurate news is such a cornerstone of democracy, it’s absolutely essential that journalists are held accountable for the news they produce. They have the power to shape opinions, to sway votes, to color people’s mindsets. As a result, journalism that is inaccurate, biased or poorly fact-checked is an equally great threat to democracy. At NewsCred, we believe in celebrating great journalism. At the same time, we believe that it’s time that we put in place checks and balances to ensure that the quality and trustworthiness of the news is always maintained at a superior level. It’s not a question of blame or mistrust. Its a question of accountability and ensuring that the principles of objectivity and accuracy are never compromised by outside interests.

Sometimes journalists have a self-image as a profession that is never at fault. Journalists, like members of any other trade, often assume that their peers will always uphold themselves to the highest levels of integrity and ethics. To be fair, people find it very easy to categorize all journalists and all news sources into one basket, thereby generalizing, stereotyping and often spreading misinformation — the things that they are accusing journalists of in the first place. But assuming that all articles, or all journalists, or all news organisations are always ethical or trustworthy is equally dangerous. When coming up with the idea of NewsCred, we saw that journalists rarely excommunicate or banish those who break ethical codes. As a lawyer, if you break the law, you cannot practice your trade. But there is not such accountability in journalism. We don’t want to take it that far — we simply want to ensure that a journalist has a public track record. Same with news organisations. We want to ensure that great journalism is celebrated, encouraged and nurtured. We will also ensure that poor journalism or violations in the journalist code are not ignored nor forgotten.

So back to our tag line. We don’t mistrust journalists. We simply want to be informed, and help others make informed decisions about the people they put their trust in everyday when picking up the paper. In fact, NewsCred wouldn’t exist without journalists, and we are indebted to their service. We are all citizens of an intellectual community with obligations to the world. And make no mistake, journalists are shining examples of those citizens.

This post originally appeared on the NewsCred blog.