THE HANDBOOK

1) DON’T PRODUCE DISINFORMATION YOURSELF

Fastness isn’t everything

Even though almost every editor puts pressure on its journalist to produce a lot of news in a very short time, it cannot push you to stop fact-checking every single piece of information you are using. We live in a world where anyone can share anything. But as a journalist, you can’t publish something you are not sure about. Proper fact-checking is what distinguish journalists from everyday users. 

Independent sources

At least two independent reliable sources. We all know that. Now it’s important to stick to it. If your sources are anonymous, state a reason why is it so. Use links. At the end of the article show your work with the subject and state all the sources you have worked with and why. More in chapter 9 - Transparency.

Don’t just copy and paste 

Some sources are more trusted, some sources less. But in the end, we are all humans, and humans make mistakes. No one is perfect. So journalists have to double-check, double-check, double-check (even from the world’s most famous press agencies and other newsrooms).

2) RECOGNIZE THE DISINFORMATION

Obviously, the journalists cannot fact check every piece of information that was ever created because of the quantity of produced information. Therefore it is important to learn some tools on how to recognize disinformation.

Critical thinking

Have your critical thinking mode on. Question everything every time.

Use your common sense

When it doesn’t feel right, it’s most likely not going to be right. If you have even the merest suspicion or something seems a bit weird about the information you are reading, go to the primary source and fact check the information from other independent sources. 

Photos

When working with pictures, use tools such as Google reverse image search. Go to images.google.com, click on the camera icon and insert the photo you want to find. Google will show you visually similar pictures, therefore you can find the primary source of the picture or discover if it is shown in a correct context. Same works on a webpage TinEye, which has an even bigger database of the photos.

Videos

It is very hard to recognize deep fake videos nowadays. We need forensic analysis, such as comparing the shadows and surroundings with the shadow predictions and street view on Google maps, etc.. But you need a lot of skills and time, it is better to leave it to the experts. However, a more common threat is manipulated videos, e.g. ones with a wrong caption. To detect such a video, it's best to use your common sense. Does it look too unimaginable to be true? Then it probably isn’t. Try to find the original source. Make sure that the video is current and it is shown in the right context. When it comes to politicians, look at the official websites or for a transcript of the video. 

3) DON’T SHARE DISINFORMATION

Never share a link, video or post

When disapproving disinformation, you should never share a link nor a video with the original disinformation or source. It increases the popularity of websites sharing disinformation (e.g. among search engines ads), therefore you can make the content even more popular than before. Same stands for social media. Reactions, comments, and shares change algorithms of the social media and propagate the posts even more. 

Solution - make a new link

When you need to disapprove disinformation, e.g. because it’s becoming viral, make a special link, where you can share the content you are working with. Therefore you will show how exactly the disinformation looks like but you are not going to take part in its spreading.

For this purpose, you can use a website such as http://web.archive.org/. You upload the page you want to copy and the system makes the “clone” itself.

What about screenshots?

Screenshots may be problematic since it’s very easy to fake them. They can even be edited and used as an argument against your claim. Try to find a different solution before you use them.

Mere Exposure Effect

Scholar Robert B. Zajonc carried out a study describing the psychological phenomenon known as the mere exposure effect. He claims that repeated exposure to a stimulus makes it more familiar and therefore, enhances one’s attitude towards it. According to Zajonc, new stimulus raises a feeling of avoidance and fear, but the more we are exposed to it, the more we feel positive towards the stimulus and we are more likely to believe it.

Due to this theory, some experts argue that we shouldn’t be showing the disinformation while disapproving it at all, but we should share the correct information based on facts. 

4) KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

While writing and producing journalism material, you have to be objective. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t adjust the content to your audience. How old are they? What is their highest education? What are their beliefs? That’s how you can target them and make them trust you more. Never use words and terms that your audience could not know. Rather explain everything. Don’t get separated by your office from them. Go out and meet your readers, viewers, and listeners.

5) DON’T TALK ABOUT IT UNLESS IT’S VIRAL

As mentioned in chapter 3, reacting to the original disinformation post makes it more popular. Due to the Mere exposure effect (also described in chapter 3) talking about certain disinformation may raise the familiarity with the piece of news among people and therefore make it more believable. But when there is disinformation that is viral and extensively shared on social media, you should disprove it. Also, when you see disinformation that is trending and is most likely to go viral, you can state it correctly in advance so the correct information reaches people before the wrong one. 

Algorithms

Algorithms aren’t initially a bad thing. “In computer science, it is a set of instructions for solving some problems, step by step,'' according to TedAd lesson: What's an algorithm? by David J. Malan. Social media algorithms are a way of sorting posts in users’ feeds, not by publish time but based on relevancy. 

Social media and search engines collect your data to improve your experience on their websites but also to better target you with ads. That’s the reason why you can increase the virality of disinformation by sharing them. When readers click on your post (where you disapprove disinformation but share the original source), it may change the algorithms and therefore it can, for example, start appearing as an ad when googling, because it becomes more relevant.  When you interact (share, comment, like) with a disinformation post (even though you can have the best intentions to falsify it) it makes the post more important, therefore it is more likely to appear on the top of people’s news feed - unfortunately also on the ones that won’t believe your disproof. 

The algorithms of social media are constantly changing and it is impossible to find out how exactly do they work, the companies say it’s their business secret. But you should at least explain to your readers what are the algorithms used for so they can understand why is it important to not interact with disinformation posts. 

People are depressed when fakes are everywhere

A Study has shown that people that are regularly often exposed to the term fake news have lower trust in media in general. That’s why some experts recommend not to mention disinformation and fake news at all, but try to spread fact-checked trustful news.

6) BE TRANSPARENT

Transparency is going to raise the trust of your readers since they will see that you have nothing to hide. 

Show your work

Describe to your audience in detail how did you work. Why did you choose this angle of the story? Did you change the topic along the way? Did something not work out as you wanted - for instance, you couldn’t get in touch with someone? Why did you choose these sources? Why did you decide to leave out other once? Have you achieved the results you wanted? 

Link

Don’t be afraid to show all the sources that you have used along the way, link as much as possible so anyone can find out, where did you get the information. It is much harder to devalue such work. 

Admit your mistakes

It’s okay to make mistakes. The worst thing you can do is try to hide it or pretend that nothing has happened. If you make a mistake: apologize to your readers, correct it and publish the new version with the date and note, which part has been changed. 

Talk about the secrets

Let people know about the tools that you use but are hidden for your audience - for example the algorithms of the website of your newsroom. Newsrooms are using such thing to gain more consumers but also to simplify the search for the content that readers could be interested in. It could seem like you are revealing your weaknesses. But the readers should know and understand how the media houses work. It makes you more transparent, and therefore more trustworthy.

7) COLLABORATE

With other newsrooms

The journalistic profession can quite often seem like one big concurrency fight. Who is going to have the news first,  who has a more interesting source, a better picture? But when it comes to disinformation, newsrooms should join together and collaborate to come up with the best way to tackle down the disinformation. Fact-checking needs a lot of people and time, the exchange of information can be beneficial for both sides. 

With other journalists

Journalists should share their knowledge and discoveries regarding disinformation. When you have found out a new functional way how to tackle down disinformation, you should show it to your fellow professionals. If you have come across a problem that you cannot solve on your own, don’t be afraid to ask someone to collaborate with you. 

Working with disinformation can easily lead to online harassment. If you become a target of a hate campaign, reach out for help. And, on the other way around, help those who can be targeted. You can read more about this topic in Hate campaigns – What you should do - an advice kit from Finnish investigative journalist Johanna Vehkoo. 

With the government

Every government cares about the security of its country. In different countries, different ministries take care of disinformation, as it is a potential threat (in the Czech Republic it’s the Ministry of Interior). You should find out what are the aims of your government to synchronize your actions in the matter of fight against disinformation. The best way to do it is to start a media pool where you could encounter with other media houses and officials for collaboration. You can contact Tero Koskinen, Head of Preparedness in Media Pool in Finland, which aim is to safeguard Finnish media activity. He is willing to help other countries to start their media pool. 

8) EDUCATE OTHERS