Responsible journalism in an age of irresponsible information

At a time when there seems to be more information (and more disinformation) than ever, independent and vigorous reporting remains a vital pillar of democratic society. The cautionary tale of restricted media spaces in countries like Russia reminds us that disinformation is likelier to take hold when citizens have little or no access to independent sources of news.[2] An open media system is not to be taken for granted. Without a wide variety of independent media outlets, there is a vacuum, which disinformation can fill.

Although the Trump presidency seems to have revitalized media outlets and increased audiences on television news channels, these numbers obscure two deeper and longer-standing crises within the U.S. media system: a crisis of business model and a crisis of norms.

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2. How to anticipate future problems today
It is hard to plan for an unknown set of future problems with faked materials when we are still struggling to deal with our current crop of fake social media accounts, bots, and foreign interference. But faked audio and faked video are coming. Verification will not be impossible, but it will not be simple, either. The right procedures will be key.

Organizations should create a regular schedule for revisiting and updating social media and verification guidelines. This is a rather simple change to promote organizational vigilance. In a swiftly changing social media environment, even guidelines created before the 2016 election can now seem outdated. Setting a regular time to update guidelines creates an in-built mechanism to keep organizations up-to-date on the latest developments in social media and pushes editors to think about how their newsrooms might adapt.

Another method to remain vigilant about disinformation and faked materials is to create a beat reporter on the subject, akin to Craig Silverman’s role at BuzzFeed. This ensures that news organizations know and report on the newest developments in falsification.

Within the broader organization, news outlets might assign responsibility for thinking about this issue to a C-level executive within the news organization. That person would take charge of finding appropriate verification solutions to emerging threats. By thinking now about future problems of faked and weaponized information, organizations can tailor solutions to their own organizational structures. They can develop procedures to prevent problems, rather than have to issue corrections that undermine their credibility after the fact.

All organizations struggle with accurate planning for a future they cannot predict; the nimblest ones both plan for the future and establish procedures to revisit continually their assessments of future developments. In the case of news organizations, we can be fairly certain that faked materials, faked social media accounts, and weaponized information will continue, even if we cannot be certain of the forms they will take.

We sometimes take for granted the openness and freedom of our media. They are a source of strength; they are also a source of vulnerability when bad actors seek to exploit that freedom by turning Americans against each other. There are no easy answers on how to balance between combatting the nefarious effects of foreign interference and protecting the very freedoms that interference seeks to undermine.

No matter how we proceed, the vibrancy and revitalization of free media remain essential for a resilient democracy. For all the proclamations that social media have made major news outlets obsolete, these more traditional organizations still drive the conversation in more circles than we might think. Trust in “the media” may be low, but trust in “my media” — the specific news outlets that a citizen uses — is still relatively high.[20] Many commentators are focusing on how to regain trust. But journalists and editors also need to think about how to retain trust from new and loyal users. Sometimes that means new procedures to avoid succumbing to disinformation; sometimes that means updating journalistic procedures like verification for the social media age; sometimes that means remembering that the media still very often sets the agenda and needs to take that responsibility even more seriously than ever.

[1] Christopher Paul, Miriam Matthews, The Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda Model: Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It (RAND, 2016)

[2] Julia Joffe, “Why Trump’s Attack on the Time Warner Merger Is Dangerous for the Press,” The Atlantic (28 November 2017)

— Read more in Heidi Tworek, Responsible Reporting in an Age of Irresponsible Information, Policy Brief (German Marshall Fund, 23 March 2018)