Tracking News Stories Using Blockchain to Guarantee their Traceability and Information Analysis

Abstract

Nowadays, having a mechanism to guarantee the traceability of the information and to monitor the evolution of the news from its origin, and having elements to know the reputation and credibility of the media, analyze the news as well as its evolution and possible manipulation, etc. is becoming increasingly significant. Transparency in journalism is currently a key element in performing serious and rigorous journalism. End-users and fact-checking agencies need to be able to check and verify the information published in different media. This transparency principle enables the tracking of news stories and allows direct access to the source of essential content to contrast the information it contains and to know whether it has been manipulated. Additionally, the traceability of news constitutes another instrument in the fight against the lack of credibility, the manipulation of information, misinformation campaigns and the propagation of fake news. This article aims to show how to use Blockchain to facilitate the tracking and traceability of news so that it can provide support to the automatic indexing and extraction of relevant information from newspaper articles to facilitate the monitoring of the news story and allows users to verify the veracity of what they are reading.