Forbes has just announced a partnership with blockchain journalism network Civil, making it the first major international media brand to test the waters and publish content to the Civil decentralised platform.
The partnership will see Civil’s blockchain publishing tools integrated into ‘Bertie’, Forbes’ content management system (CMS). The integration of the blockchain into Bertie will provide transparency for authorship and content rights as well as permanent archiving in the ledger, and is expected to begin as early as Q1 of 2019 with crypto-related news pieces. Forbes will also have access to Civil’s community-curated whitelist of newsrooms, hailed as the ‘Civil Registry’ which runs on the Civil protocol.
This partnership bodes well for the future of editorial as it allows one of the biggest names in international publishing to experiment with the blockchain and increase audience trust through a decentralised ledger. Founded in 1917 in the United States, Forbes has a readership of more than 120 million people globally.
Salah Zalatimo, Senior Vice President of Product & Technology at Forbes remarked on the partnership:
“WE ARE RELENTLESSLY FOCUSED ON RAPID EXPERIMENTATION AND IMPLEMENTATION SO THAT WE CAN DETERMINE WHAT’S IN THE BEST INTEREST OF OUR AUDIENCE AND WHAT IS NEXT FOR OUR INDUSTRY.”
“FORBES AND CIVIL BELIEVE PASSIONATELY IN THE MISSION OF JOURNALISM, AND TOGETHER WE CAN PROVIDE AUDIENCES WITH A LEVEL OF UNPRECEDENTED TRANSPARENCY AROUND OUR CONTENT. WE’LL ALSO BE ABLE TO EXPAND THE REACH OF OUR WRITERS AND IDENTIFY NEW REVENUE CHANNELS OVER TIME.”
Civil has previously announced a partnership with major news agency Associated Press (AP). The global media agency plans to use blockchain for intellectual rights, tracking its content usage, and supporting ethical journalism. This association with Civil marks Forbes longstanding legacy of innovation to retain journalistic integrity and relevance over the past century since its founding. Over the past year, Forbes editorial team have rapidly expanded their coverage of the crypto-sphere as well as introducing Forbes CryptoAsset & Blockchain Advisor which pertains exclusively to crypto and blockchain related news and updates.
