"Media Responsibility in an Age of Disinformation"
Edward R. Murrow Program For Journalists
2021 Series
2021 marked the 15th IVLP project World Partnerships has hosted under the Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists “Media Responsibility in an Age of Disinformation” rubric since the topic first became part of IVLP programming in late 2018. Over the past three years, over 450 IVLP journalists have come to the Tampa Bay Region to discuss how existing and evolving best practice techniques can be applied to their everyday, on-the-ground reporting in a global information eco-system flooded with disinformation and misinformation. Bringing together expertise, ideas and techniques is a fundamental reason why exchanges matter. Throughout 2021, World Partnerships organized virtual sessions for IVLP groups from every corner of the world.
To dig deeper into these journalism best practices to counter misinformation and disinformation, World Partnerships brings together IVLP groups with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters and fact-checkers, Emmy Award-winning television news investigative reporters, on-line political journalists, community radio public affairs talk show hosts, and the world’s largest media measurement company, Nielsen. Recent discussions have centered around new techniques in investigative journalism, including collaborative investigations, forensic journalism, open source information, geo-location, identifying “deep fakes”, and using social media to crowdsource stories.
To dig deeper into these journalism best practices to counter misinformation and disinformation, World Partnerships brings together IVLP groups with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters and fact-checkers, Emmy Award-winning television news investigative reporters, on-line political journalists, community radio public affairs talk show hosts, and the world’s largest media measurement company, Nielsen. Recent discussions have centered around new techniques in investigative journalism, including collaborative investigations, forensic journalism, open source information, geo-location, identifying “deep fakes”, and using social media to crowdsource stories.
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The first stop on our virtual tour was The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit school for journalism located in St. Petersburg. The Institute is the owner of the Tampa Bay Times newspaper. It is the world’s leading instructor, innovator, convener, and resource journalism leadership, ethical decision-making and fact-checking, editing, writing, reporting, and digital media skills. This year, Poynter added two new approaches to countering disinformation: "Countering Disinformation for Older Americans" and "Disinformation and Digital Tools for Debunking".
Al Tompkins, Senior Faculty at the Poynter, has engaged with hundreds of IVLP journalists over the past 20 years on subjects ranging from fact-checking to new media strategies to pandemic era journalism. Al’s message to Murrow journalists is “Seek truth and tell it as fully as possible, and detect and expose misinformation and disinformation” For Murrow groups, Al describes the reasons why this phenomenon is so prevalent in the Internet Era, and look at ways that journalists can counter misinformation and disinformation. Every aspect of his discussion points are practical and designed to bring immediate benefit to the work of our IVLP journalists. |
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Another stop on the virtual tour includes Mark Douglas, Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist recently retired from WFLA-8 talked about fact checking and investigative journalism techniques based on his 40+year career in broadcast journalism. Mark has engaged with hundreds of IVLP journalists over the past decade. Mark used video clips from his Emmy-winning 2-year investigation into abuse in Florida’s foster care system to demonstrate universal techniques of investigative journalism, and emphasized the fundamental role of journalists to hold governments accountable and “find the truth and tell it.” Mark also provided the visitors with a comprehensive list of on-line resources for investigative journalism.
Finally, Alex Mahadevan, Senior Multimedia Reporter for the MediaWise Project at the Poynter Institute, presented "Disinformation and Digital Tools for Debunking", and took a deep dive into the growing problem of misinformation, how to identify disinformation, digital tools to expose disinformation, and the elements of fact-checking. At each stop along the discussion, Alex engaged the Murrows by asking "How do you see this in your country?" Among others, two solutions he offered were transparent fact-checking and media literacy education for their publics.
A version of this article appeared in the Global Ties U.S. May 17, 2021 “Weekly Update.”