1. Fake news – the journalists’ perspective
Dr Glenda Cooper
City University London
@glendacooper

2. ‘Fake news and the Public’ – Harpers’ Magazine
“Once the news faker obtains access to the press wires all the honest editors alive will not be able to repair the mischief he can do. An editor receiving a news item over the wire has no opportunity to test its authenticity as he would in the case of a local report. The offices of the members of The Associated Press in this country are connected with one another, and its centers of news gathering and distribution by a system of telegraph wires that in a single circuit would extend five times around the globe. This constitutes a very sensitive organism. Put your finger on it in New York, and it vibrates in San Francisco.”

3. ….that was written in 1925! substitute Facebook and Google for AP and it could have been written today

4. Journalists and Fake News
The history of fakery
Journalists as purveyors of fake news
Journalists as defenders of fact against fake news
Can journalists see the debate as an opportunity?
Innovations for/by journalists to combat fake news

5. The history of fake news
Fake news has been around as long as people have spread information – 1200BC and Rameses the Great
Took off with 1439 and invention of the printing press
New York Sun’s Great Moon Hoax of 1835
Objectivity only really becomes a selling point in the last century or so
----- Meeting Notes (30/08/ :49) -----
Rameses the Great and Battle of Kadesh - lost it but commissioned painting on temples to commemorate a great victory

6. The change: fake news and the internet
Distribution and cost - Unlike earlier, the cost of publishing (via Wordpress etc) and distributing (via social networks) approached zero
Audiences and Trust – Given these much lower costs, reputations are far more expendable
Law and regulation – Much lower costs, far more operators involved in exchanging information – and hugely difficult to regulate.

7. Seven types of fake news (Wardle, 2017)

8. Buzzfeed & Fake News in the US election

9. Facebook and Fake News
December 2016, Facebook announced it was introducing a tool to allow readers to flag possible fake stories which the social media giant would then send to fact checkers to verify (Jamieson and Solon, 2016)
May Ahead of UK election Facebook places full page advertisements in newspapers in order to alert readers to signs of fake news on its site (Murgia, 2017).
August 2017 Facebook blocks ads from pages which spread fake news

10. Not just individuals…..’cybertroops’ organised by governments (Bradshaw & Howard, 2017)

11. Could fake news be a good thing for journalists?
Gives mainstream media a chance to show it has value based on’ expertise and ethics, engagement and experience’ (Beckett, 2017)
New business model of fact checking, myth busting can be developed
Renewed interest in media literacy

12. What should we be doing Journalists Media organisations Curate better
Be truthful
Be transparent
Show expertise
Verify
Filter out fake news better
Promote media literacy
Give the audience better indications of quality of content
Ensure those who report accurately are rewarded

13. Full Fact – useful for both journalists and audience

14. First Draft

15. DMINR Web-based data mining tool
It will mine information, search and find connections through bringing together public data, search, and social media and other APIs
Examples might include property, police, legal, company data, EU, World Bank, ONS, location based data, Google’s API and social media
Will help both as a research tool and a fact-checking tool
To be tested in 30 newsrooms

16. Conclusions
‘Fake news’ has had less purchase in the UK because of journalistic history
But there has been a realisation that better verification, fact checking needs to be done
Opportunity for journalists/media organisations to benefit if they can present themselves as trustworthy and transparent