We spent much of 2016 and 2017 fretting about the effects of fake news and other forms of viral misinformation. Some did so by proclaiming the advent of a “post-truth” era.
So many of the pixels we dedicated to this topic, however, were uninformed or ill-informed. Not because of any intention to mislead on the part of the authors (usually), but because we are still woefully ignorant of the real effects of fake news and how to fix it.
Sure, we know anecdotally that misinformation can have real-world effects. “Fake news” led an armed man to “investigate” a pizzeria in D.C., a protester to heckle Emmanuel Macron outside a Whirlpool factory in Amiens, and blasphemy charges to be levelled against an innocent candidate in Jakarta. And we’ve long known that sometimes, just sometimes, politicians will retract or drop a debunked claim.
But there is still so little research that we can apply to everyday fact-checking work. We know quite a lot about the reach of fake news, but not much about its capacity to sway votes or affect decisions. We know at last that fact-checking probably doesn’t backfire in experimental settings, but not whether that is true in real life.
2017 saw a lot of new research in this space, to the point where the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) is launching a research database to catalog the most interesting academic findings. But it’s still not enough to help practitioners do a better job.
I am hopeful that 2018 will be the year that we move research out the lab and make it directly applicable to journalists debunking falsehoods.
If we want real-world solutions, we need real-world data, however. We need to learn how people actually consume fake news and fact checks when they encounter them in their everyday life, or when they look them up to prove (or disprove) an argument. The IFCN is coordinating fact-checkers to gather information about their audiences and we are eager to work with interested academics.
The biggest prize here, of course, would be data from Facebook. It’s been almost a year to the day since the social network launched a fake-news flagging mechanism, leaning on fact-checking organizations that are signatories of the IFCN code of principles. The platform has released extremely general figures about how this program has performed. I understand that the platform is under enormous pressure to make things work and that there are legions of Facebookers who genuinely care about fixing this problem. But more openness — and a willingness from academics and journalists to criticize constructively and not reflexively — has got to be the way forward.
Facebook has 2 billion monthly users worldwide. It drives around a third of all referrals to top publishers in the United States. And it is performing what is probably the largest real-life experiment on combating misinformation with fact-checking. We need to know how it’s going so that we can make better decisions about what fact-checkers should (and shouldn’t) do.
Alexios Mantzarlis is director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter.
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading