• What it is: An AI-powered Chrome extension that surfaces journalist credentials and trust signals directly within news articles
• What it does: Helps readers quickly assess who wrote an article, their background, track record, and credibility indicators
• AI used for: Byline recognition and author identity resolution, aggregation of prior work, awards, and publication history, detection of corrections, retractions, and credibility flags, contextual Q&A about a journalist’s expertise and past reporting
• Built as: Browser extension prototype
• Tools: ChatGPT / Claude / NotebookLM / Figma Make
• Why it matters: Strengthens trust by making author credibility visible at the moment of reading

This prototype builds on my experience designing trust, transparency, and byline features for large-scale media platforms.

Context

Trust in news is fragile. Readers are often asked to evaluate complex, high-stakes information without knowing much about the person who reported it. While headlines and outlets are scrutinized, journalist credibility is frequently opaque—buried behind bylines, paywalls, or external searches.

As AI accelerates content production and distribution, questions of authorship, expertise, and accountability become even more important. Readers need lightweight ways to answer a simple but critical question: Who wrote this, and why should I trust them?

Problem

News platforms rarely provide sufficient context about journalists at the point of reading. To assess credibility, readers must leave the article, open multiple tabs, and piece together information from LinkedIn, Wikipedia, or prior stories—if they do it at all.

Insight

From a human-centered design perspective, trust is built through transparency and traceability, not authority alone. Readers don’t need verdicts—they need context: a journalist’s background, experience, and track record, presented clearly and without friction. AI can serve as a trust intermediary—not by scoring journalists, but by organizing and presenting relevant signals so readers can make their own assessments.

Prototype

I designed CredCheck, a Chrome extension that augments news articles with an on-demand journalist profile. When a reader hovers over or clicks a byline, CredCheck:

• Identifies the journalist and resolves their professional identity
• Displays recent articles, beats, and publication history
• Highlights awards, recognitions, and notable work
• Enables conversational follow-ups via AI (“What else has this journalist written about healthcare?”)

The experience is designed to be fast, optional, and non-judgmental—providing clarity without interrupting the reading flow.

Outcome & Implications

CredCheck reframes AI’s role in journalism from content accelerator to trust infrastructure. By making authorship and credibility legible, it supports more confident, informed reading—especially in an era of AI-generated and rapidly syndicated content.