Spreading Facts Not Fiction
Combat Misinformation w/ Information
Twelve days before Election Day and misinformation, disinformation, and no information still remain huge hurdles for those of us who support an informed electorate.
Some anecdotes…
A hairdresser in Pittsburgh told Reporting Right she cared about food safety, but didn’t know who to vote for.
A store clerk in Durham told Reporting Right she had just moved and didn’t know where her polling booth was and whether she could even vote.
A young man in the Detroit suburbs told Reporting Right he and many of his friends were sitting this presidential election out because they just didn’t know who to choose.
Now What:
It’s time for local journalists to launch their own 11th hour information campaign.
Here’s some tips on how to do that:
Make informing voters your top priority until election day.
Be of service. Encourage your publication to launch a voting information hotline for voters confused about where and how to vote in your community.
Go where the eyeballs are. Inform your readers about candidates and how they stand on the issues with short clips on the social media platforms they use.
Get interactive. Provide—like some websites have—
tailored info that allows voters to plug in issues they care about and read where candidates stand.
Get real. Distribute printed voter guides to the college campuses, retirement communities, libraries, community centers, and faith communities on your beat.
Dumb it down. Embrace charts, graphs, lists, tables, and visual storytelling tools so readers can get information about candidates in easy to digest formats.
Just the facts. Remember, the least informed voters are the ones with the least amount of time. Don’t overwhelm them with too much info right now. Get them the most important stuff. Leave out the rest.
Stop reporting on the industrial polling complex: how it’s flawed, why it’s flawed, when it was less/more flawed.
More on Disinformation
The News Literacy Project wants to help
Arizona’s disinformation battle
Why fact-checking doesn’t really work
Also In the News
The billionaires funding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign
What are the real effects of immigration in America?
X’s ‘Election Integrity Community’ is full of misinformation
We’re Reading
“Falsehoods Fly: Why Misinformation Spreads and How to Stop It”
By Paul Thagard
Comic Relief
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See You Next Week!
Our Staff
Executive Editor Kyle Spencer
Managing Editor Christen Gall
Our Board of Advisors
Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability
David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy
Connor Gibson, founder of Grassrootbeer Investigations
Maurice Cunningham, retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and author of Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization.
Reed Galen, co-founder of The Lincoln Project
Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College, founder of Faculty First Responders and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe distinguished professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Ralph Wilson, founder of the Corporate Genome Project and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
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