Consumer Reports WebWatch Announces Formation Of Advisory Board

YONKERS, N.Y. — Consumer Reports WebWatch, a Consumers Union nonprofit research project, today announced the formation of its advisory board, drawn from leaders in online news and media, academia and the e-commerce and consumer advocacy communities.

The advisory board assists and guides Consumer Reports WebWatch on how it will achieve its goal to improve credibility and consumer trust in World Wide Web sites, and how it can reach out to information professionals that are key decision-makers on Web site policies.

"We've put together an outstanding group of professionals who all, in one way or another, have been pioneers in seeking the highest standards for the good of the reader or consumer online," said Beau Brendler, director of Consumer Reports WebWatch. "We need their diverse perspectives on disclosure and transparency, and we need their real-world experience to make sure our project is not only useful, but that it reaches its goals."

The advisory board includes a former president of NBC News; the founding president of the Online News Association; some of the world's thought leaders in human/computer interface; a former director of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission; and professors from many of the nation's leading journalism and new media schools.

Consumer Reports WebWatch seeks to provide in-depth understanding of business practices, models and trends on the Web; to define best practices that improve consumer trust and belief in what the Web has to offer; and to promote awareness and adoption of those practices Web-wide.

The Consumer Reports WebWatch Board of Advisers:

• Robert Aglow, Executive Producer, News Coverage, MSNBC on the Internet
• Jack Balkin, Founder and Director, Information Society Project at Yale Law School and Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law School
• Joan "Jodie" Z. Bernstein, Counsel, Bryan Cave LLP
• Denise Caruso, one of the project's founders and Founder and Executive Director, The Hybrid Vigor Institute
• Janice Castro, Assistant Professor, New Media, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism
• B.J. Fogg, Director of Research, Stanford Persuasive Technologies Lab
• Joel Gurin, Executive Vice President, Consumers Union
• Rich Jaroslovsky, Founder and past president, Online News Association
• Robert Mayer, Professor, Family & Consumer Studies, University of Utah
• Eric Newton, Director of Journalism Initiatives, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
• Jakob Nielsen, User Advocate & Principal, Nielsen Norman Group
• Carol Nunnelley, Project Director, Associated Press Managing Editors National Credibility Roundtable
• Larry Pryor, Executive Editor, Online Journalism Review; Director, Online Program, Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California
• Harrison "Lee" Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project
• Fred Ritchin, Director, Pixel Press
• Tom Rosenstiel, Director, Project for Excellence in Journalism
• Jared Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
• Sreenath Sreenivasan, Associate Professor, Professional Practice, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
• Cyndi Stivers, President and Editor-in-Chief, Time Out New York
• Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication
• Richard Wald, Fred Friendly Professor of Media & Society, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
• Steve Waldman, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, BeliefNet.com
• Omar Wasow, Executive Director, BlackPlanet.com
• Stuart Wilk, Vice President and Managing Editor, the Dallas Morning News

"The pubic's suspicion and frustration with Web content will increase if people despair of making their expectations heard," said Consumer Reports WebWatch advisory board member Carol Nunnelley, project director of the Associated Press Managing Editors Credibility Roundtable. "WebWatch can give the public an effective voice as the online information world develops its guidelines for trust."

The Consumer Reports WebWatch mission is to investigate, inform and improve the credibility of information on the Web. Consumer Reports WebWatch will launch its Web site in spring 2002, which will be home to its research and analysis on issues of credibility, usability, and content, along with news of use to consumers navigating the Web.

Consumer Reports WebWatch is a project of Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine and Consumer Reports.org. The project is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which invests in ideas that fuel timely action and results; the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities; and the Open Society Institute, which encourages debate in areas in which one view of an issue dominates all others.

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Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, is an independent, nonprofit testing and information gathering organization, serving only the consumer. We are a comprehensive source of unbiased advice about products and services, personal finance, health, nutrition, and other consumer concerns. Since 1936, our mission has been to test products, inform the public, and protect consumers.