Need to Know
Monday, August 24, 2020
Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism
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You might have heard . . .
Facebook is pressuring its independent fact-checkers to change their rulings (Fast Company)
. . . but did you know:
Facebook braces itself for Trump to cast doubt on election results (The New York Times)
For weeks, the president has repeated false claims regarding mail-in voting and other aspects of November’s election. Facebook’s top brass is holding daily meetings to plan for the possibility that Trump or other players could use the site to spread false information regarding the election’s results. The company currently allows political ads to include falsehoods without penalty, prompting Facebook leaders to consider shutting down those advertisements after the election if results are unclear or disputed by the president. Other tech companies, including YouTube and Twitter, have explored strategies to respond to a potential flow of disinformation after Election Day.
+ Related: Yesterday, Twitter flagged a tweet from Trump that discouraged using mail drop boxes to vote (Axios)
+ Noted: Judge exempts Portland journalists and legal observers from police orders to leave protests (Reuters); News publishers join fight against Apple over app store terms (The Wall Street Journal)
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Local newsrooms should talk about how to cover politicians who promote conspiracy theories like QAnon
This year, the number of QAnon adherents running for office requires local journalists to be aware of the conspiracy theorists’ manipulation tactics and understand how to cover these candidates without amplifying their messages. Journalists and editors need to discuss how they will handle that coverage ahead of time, before news is breaking, writes Susan Benkelman, API’s director of accountability journalism. She offers five items to put on the agenda for that conversation.
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An experiment in interactivity puts viewers in the control booth (The Knight-Cronkite News Lab)
NASA and SpaceX’s launch would normally be an event best seen in person, but as the pandemic unfolded, people were told to watch the event from home. To make the event more accessible to its audience, Orlando station WKMG-TV created a page where viewers could watch the launch from different camera angles, including inside the cockpit. This feature was made using a broadcasting app co-created by WKMG owner Graham Media Group, which allowed the network to have greater control of revenue and content than it did previously with platforms like Facebook Live.
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U.S. ban on TikTok follows similar move in India (Committee to Protect Journalists)
Since June, India has banned TikTok, WeChat and dozens of other apps, claiming national security concerns with the Chinese-owned technology. Before the ban, Indian newspapers had used the app to plug coverage of topics ranging from police brutality to entertainment. Media industry observers and journalists in India have expressed concerns not with the loss of TikTok itself, but with the precedent the ban sets for similar action against other social media networks, like Facebook and Twitter.
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Spotify has a counterfeit podcast problem (Digiday)
For the last few weeks, Spotify-owned hosting platform Anchor has allowed users to post fake shows using the names of popular podcasts like “Serial,” with the goal being to trick users into listening to the phony version and profit from ad monetization. The counterfeits use similar metadata and cover art as the originals, and they often appear above the real podcast in search results on Anchor’s app. The podcast platform also has been used in the past to illegally distribute music.
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How to avoid writing needlessly alarmist school reopening stories (Phi Delta Kappan)
Alexander Russo writes that recent education coverage has “(emphasized) danger and emotion at the expense of context and data.” Some stories have relied on flawed research or misinterpreted data, while others “overdramatized” outbreaks involving children, Russo argues. He recommends journalists infuse context into data, quotes and anecdotes, while taking time to add information about the community’s infection level and how schools are following safety protocols.
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What can ‘folk theories of journalism’ tell us about why some people don’t trust us? (Nieman Lab)
Based on interviews with dozens of people from Spain and the U.K., a new study in the journal Journalism Studies found that many people who avoid news don’t buy into the idea that journalists are watchdogs for government accountability. Many of those interviewed find the news media to be irrelevant or complicit with the political establishment, a view that is in stark contrast to commonly-held views in the journalism industry that reporters play an important role in preserving democracy.
+ Without journalists, my mom often said, “We just would not know.” (Mother Jones)
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