Since the truth cuts across the right-left divide, Herman tells BW that the real policing of political spin will come from its users in the form of a Wikipedia-like editing. Hoping to avoid tarring whole sites as either in the tank for conservatives or liberals, NYT says SpinSpotter’s criteria for identifying bias is based on the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. The tripwires are “personal voice, passive voice, a biased source, disregarded context, selective disclosure and lack of balance.” And in a feature that will alternately amuse and frighten journalists even more, SpinSpotter is developing alerts if a story uses suspiciously similar language to a press release.

The recent uproar over USWeekly’s take on Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin suggests that web users are quick to root out perceived journalistic bias. But like Politico.com, which just launched its ad net this week, has found, it faces a challenge of keeping users interested when the heat of the campaign cools down after the November elections.