Anything that persuades news consumers to pause before sharing is a good start and helps keep misinformation from polluting our information ecosystem.
Category Archive: News and Analysis
The jury is still out on this question in the long term, but for now, most experts say chatbots will contribute to the spread of misinformation. Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT what it knew about me—and its response was startling.
Reporting often involves the presentation of conflicting information from different sources. When this happens, reporters must be diligent in verifying the facts and seeking multiple perspectives. Ultimately, the goal is to provide the context, evidence, and analysis needed for the audience to make an informed judgment. And in moments when information is hard to assess accurately, it is critical for reporters to explain to their readers why they couldn’t obtain that information.
Protect your sources. It’s the cardinal rule of journalism, and reporters hold this promise of confidentiality in the highest regard. Journalists will protect a source’s identity or withhold details of their conversations when revealing these truths would be morally objectionable or life-threatening to the source. Yet, some journalists have broken this sacred covenant when their own security or safety is on the line.
Ethical journalists act with integrity, seek the truth, and report on it. Telling a story of public interest requires transparency on who provided the information and how the reporter acquired it. Sometimes sources or experts will only speak with a journalist if the conversation is considered on background or deep background. The terms are part of a journalist’s reporting arsenal and should only be used when necessary. But some subjects, particularly those in positions of power, have used this type of attribution to their advantage.
Journalists have a long history of putting citizens first and holding power to account–and that shouldn’t change just because there’s a new owner on the masthead. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel go even further and say in a Neiman Reports post that this responsibility is “social obligation that can actually override their employers’ immediate interests at times.”
To answer this question, you might go straight to the source. Since launching his HBO series Last Week Tonight in 2014, John Oliver has repeatedly shot down suggestions that his work is a form of journalism. “No, I’m not a journalist at all,” he told CBS News. “Obviously, I’m a comedian.”
Press freedom is under attack, and not just recently. It has been on a steady decline for the last decade, according to the World Press Freedom Index, which ranks 180 countries every year.
America’s partisan divide is becoming more pronounced, and cable news is stoking these divisions even more than social media, according to a new study that tracked the news consumption of tens of thousands of people over four years.
Chances are we all know someone – a family member, a friend, a classmate, or a co-worker – who believes in conspiracy theories. The temptation to fact-check their every statement may be strong, but it isn’t likely to change anyone’s mind.
