When journalists practice transparency around their processes, their goals, and their values, news consumers tend to respond positively — and sometimes, they even spend more money on journalism. That was the case with an experiment that Trusting News ran with PolitiFact.
While your story can be true, it might be wrong. That’s what New York Times data journalist Robert Gebeloff explained at the recent European Investigative Journalism Conference & Dataharvest. Check out some of Gebleoff’s tips, and a data journalism checklist.
The Oxford Dictionaries named “post-truth” as the Word of the Year 2016. It is an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” This attitude of readers choosing their own beliefs over facts has been a huge problem that beset journalism in the past year, with media outlets trying to regain readers’ trusts and debunking false news from dubious digital sites. Here is a list of initiatives to combat fake news that have popped up in response to this challenge.
