User talk:Ilmari Karonen/sandbox/INA

This is my personal attempt to see what, if any, independently verifiable claims about the [www.israelnewsagency.com/ Israel News Agency] can be found.

• That the INA only distributes its material online, mostly via its web site, and only in English is presumably uncontested.
• So presumably is the fact that the INA is mainly run by Joel Leyden. The link to Leyden's IsraelPr.com is also prominently featured on the site itself.
• There are also many independent (even critical) sources to the fact that they recently launched an SEO contest to outrank Arab websites on the Google search for "iran holocaust cartoons".
• The INA calls itself a news agency, though some have argued that it's little more than a blog. The distinction may be academic. In any case, the fact that their material includes many editorials is somewhat atypical for traditional news agencies. It is easily verifiable that Google News does indeed carry the INA's stories. Google News does not publish its inclusion criteria, but they do not seem to be particularly stringent.
• Leyden apparently does have [www.israelnewsagency.com/inaabout.html a press card in INA's name, listing him as editor-in-chief]. I have not been able to determine if the INA's accrediation with the Israeli Goverment Press Office amounts to something more than that.
• Besides the SEO contest, one of INA's main claims to fame is having started in 1995, which would make them pioneers in online news distribution. This is something I've found surprisingly hard to verify. Archive.org only has records of their website from March 2001 onwards; according to WHOIS the domain was registered in October 2000. Google's Usenet search does turn up a news release from February 1997. It also proves Leyden was recruiting HTML writers in December 1995 for NetKing.com (a former web portal), but yields no mention of a news agency from that time. Leyden did create a memorial site for Yitzhak Rabin (now here) in 1995.

So the major questions seem to be: a) can the 1995 claim be founded on idependent sources, and b) does the SEO incident in itself make them notable enough for inclusion?

The agency claims links to its stories have been carried by several major news agencies and outlets, including CNN, Associated Press, Reuters and Washington Post. This may be true, but I've been unable to find any actual INA stories carried by any of these. Hopefully, if there are any, someone will be able to provide direct links. Ironically, Leyden's SEO efforts make looking for such references particularly hard, since all the Google results tend to point back to his own sites. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's an interesting link I found. I doubt it counts as a reliable source, though. :( Also, [www.israelnewsagency.com/yitzhakrabinisrael48041105.html here] are [www.israelnewsagency.com/internetmarketingseoadvertising2481007.html some] historical musings by Leyden himself. Again, not really relevant, but interesting reading nonetheless. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)