About TRS »
Our purposes
We mean the sites to be “right” in three (rather immodest) ways.
#1 We want to show that the web can be a place of excellence in all sorts of ways.
#2 We want to show that “The Right” can be civilized as well as opinionated.
#3 We want to be a hub or portal for people seeking a rightish take on things.
We want to prove websites can be truthful as well as lively.
We believe the Net can be original and thoughtful as well as interactive.
We are also keen to show that sites can be opinionated and truthful.
We want to challenge the stereotypes which stick to the right.
Who we are
Several of The Right Sites are edited by Richard D North, a veteran journalist and serial controversialist. RDN also writes much of the material. Paul Seaman has his own site on TRS and takes a close interest across the sites. We need further collaborators.
Our business plan
The Right Sites is a commercial venture, as are all of the members of the family. They need investment, sponsorship and any other form of income. Above all, and as precursor to income, they need traffic and to get traffic they need endorsement, media coverage, links from other sites.
Our biases
RDN is a right-wing commentator. But he doesn’t fit some of the left-right stereotypes (who does?). The Right Sites is an a-political project but it does work on the assumption that lazily soft-left, green, liberal assumptions are very prevalent and rather tedious.
In particular, presenting nuanced, well-informed more or less right-of-centre views is useful in a world in which most young people are informed by a media and educational establishment which is politically-correct when it isn’t broadly left-of-centre.
Trustworthiness
This is a vital issue in modern media and especially online. In general, we believe in the Wikipedia principle of “references”. The more a website refers outward to real-world sources which have accumulated trust, the more its material is likely to be accurate. We also believe in the idea of “families” of trust which can accumulate a solid reputation.
Opinion and evidence
We strongly believe that it is worth understanding and valuing the difference between evidence and opinion. Both are essential, but confusing them is very dangerous. In particular, opinion can respect evidence but evidence really has to try to be free of opinion.
SAU - our sponsor
The Social Affairs Unit is RDN’s closest associate on many projects. It is a (small “c”) conservative think tank which corrals thinking on modern culture under the slogan “manners and morals for the twenty-first century”. The SAU sponsors The Right Sites as a part of its wider cultural work.
