The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
San Francisco—Social-media sites Facebook and Twitter, as well as traditional media outlets, have joined a number of technology companies to form a network tasked to launch a collaborative verification platform and create a voluntary code of practice against false news.
Jenni Sargent, managing director of First Draft News, said on its website that more than 30 organizations have agreed to work as partner-networks of the First Draft Coalition to “tackle issues of trust and truth in reporting information that emerges online.”
“We live in a time when trust and truth are issues that all newsrooms, and increasingly the social platforms themselves, are facing,” Sargent wrote last Tuesday, citing a July article that Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of the British daily broadsheet The Guardian, wrote about the ways technology is disrupting the truth that “in the news feed on your phone, all stories look the same—whether they come from a credible source or not.”
According to Sargent, those joining Facebook and Twitter in the network are YouTube, the New York Times, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Cable News Network (CNN), ABC News of Australia, AJ+, ProPublica, Agence France-Presse, Channel 4 News, the Telegraph, France Info, Breaking News, Les Décodeurs, International Business Times UK, Eurovision News Exchange, SAM, Aljazeera Media Network, Reveal project, InVID project, Euronews, Sourcefabric, WITNESS, Amnesty International, European Journalism Centre, American Press Institute, International Fact Checking Network, and Duke Reporters’ Lab.
“Each partner is committed to sharing knowledge, developing policies and devising training in how journalists use the social web to find and report news,” Sargent said.
Formed in June 2015 with support from Google News Lab, the First Draft Coalition claims to have worked to raise awareness and standards around the use of newsworthy information and eyewitness media sourced from the social web.
On its website, the coalition hihglights a collection of articles and case studies offering best practice advice and guidance for handling eyewitness media.
As there is a thriving community of specialists who have developed and honed social news gathering and verification skills, Sargent noted, the First Draft Partner Network will create “a feedback loop” for representatives from each social media platform to connect with journalists and develop ideas for ways to streamline the verification process, improve the experience of eyewitnesses and increase news literacy among social-media users. PNA/Xinhua