MediaWise: Rebuilding Trust in Journalism through Media Literacy

(Originally contributed to Data Science Quarterly)

“It’s a high stakes game of whack-a-mole with no end in sight.” – Barbara Ortutay, Associated Press

In 2018, Phil Howard, a professor at Oxford University, testified before a select Senate Intelligence Committee on the influence of foreign operations on elections, particularly, the US 2016 Presidential Election. Howard led the Project on Computational Propaganda, the first large-scale, dedicated effort funded by the European Research Council aimed at studying the role of disinformation and social media manipulation in public life. The project coined the term “computational propaganda”, a unique kind of disinformation that makes use of automation, algorithms and big-data analytics to manipulate public opinion in targeted ways. The project found evidence that Russian operators used social media accounts and purchased advertisements that targeted US voters. Their intent was to polarize voters on particular issues, promote or discredit political candidates and discourage citizens from voting. Howard testified that the magnitude of disinformation in the 2016 election was so large that there was a one-to-one ratio of junk news to professional news shared by voters over Twitter, meaning that for every link to a news story produced by a professional news organization there was a link to content that was extremist, sensationalist, conspiratorial or some other form of junk news. The level of junk news in the US was the highest of any country they studied and was concentrated in swing states (SSCOI 2018).

The result of the increase in disinformation has been a decline in trust in American institutions, including government and traditional news media. According to Edelman’s annual trust barometer, trust in traditional news media was at an all-time low of 46 percent in 2020 (Salmon 2021).

How do we begin to restore Americans’s trust in the news media? In an interview with MediaWise Program Manager Alex Mahadevan in June of 2021, Alex affirmed his belief that the decline in trust can be reversed through improving media literacy. “Journalism has, in a way, become detached from regular folks. Helping people understand how to consume news better and understand how to trust the credibility of a news organization will only build trust in journalism as a whole.”

In 2018, the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit organization founded in 1975 to develop journalists’ skillsets, launched its MediaWise project, which aims to empower people of all ages to become more critical consumers of online content. This case study examines the mission and strategy of Poynter’s MediaWise, the drivers of success and watershed moments in its brief history as well as future challenges and opportunities.

The Poynter Institute is a nonprofit journalism and research school located in St. Petersburg, Florida and is the owner of the Tampa Bay Times. They advertise themselves as the world’s leading instructor, innovator, convener, and resource for anyone who aspires to engage and inform citizens. They offer a range of educational services for journalists, including person-to-person coaching, hands-on seminars, and interactive online courses and media reporting. In 2015, they launched the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN), which sets a code of ethics for fact checking organizations and uses its network of fact checkers to certify publishers for compliance to its code (IFCN 2021). Consolidation and cost cutting through downsizing is a reality in the news business, as exemplified by the recent sale of the Chicago Tribune to hedge fund Alden Global Capital and subsequent layoffs and retirements. As newsrooms have contracted, their use of fact-checking organizations has expanded. The IFCN currently includes 109 fact-checking organizations, including PolitiFact, which often partner with news organizations as well as tech companies like Google and Facebook. According to the latest census by the Duke Reporter’s Lab in June 2021, there are 341 active fact-checking projects in 102 countries (more than half of the nations in the world) (Stencil, Luther and Ryan 2021).

MediaWise is a function of the economic realities of the news industry and the challenges facing tech companies in combating the explosion of false stories and inappropriate content on social media.

Poynter launched the MediaWise project in 2018 with a $3 million two-year grant from Google.org, the charitable arm of Google, with the intent of making middle and high schoolers better consumers of news and online information. The project included the development of a journalism curriculum and a first-of-its-kind teen fact-checking network. MediaWise’s original goal was to reach one million students, 50 percent coming from underserved or low-income communities (Poynter 2018). The decision to focus on teens was based on a landmark study in 2016 by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) which found that 80 percent of teenagers have a hard time distinguishing sponsored content from news stories (Weinberg, McGrew, Breakstone and Ortega 2016) .

The recipe for the success of MediaWise is in leveraging the strengths of key partner organizations as well as human capital in the form of industry experts, staff and teens. MediaWise partners help in the development and distribution of the curriculum. In addition to Poynter, MediaWise partners include the SHEG, the Local Media Association, and the National Association for Media Literacy Education. SHEG research provides definitions around the vulnerabilities of teens, including the difficulties they have in distinguishing advertisements from new articles as well as sources of the information. The group is contributing curriculum development capabilities to help create classroom materials. The Local Media Association (LMA) is a media trade organization that includes more than 3,000 newspapers, broadcasters, digital news sites, and research and development partners and is focused on bringing local media organizations together to share, network, collaborate and learn through their events, newsletters, and research. One aim of the organization is to develop more sustainable business models in the face of the economic challenges facing media organizations. The LMA helps to take MediaWise programming into local communities through events, newspapers-in-education programs, and news coverage. The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) is a

non-profit association for educators, academics, activists, and students aimed at advancing media literacy in the US and includes over 6500 members and 82 organizations. NAMLE helps MediaWise in taking content to teachers, librarians, and others who teach digital literacy skills (Poynter 2018).

MediaWise has benefitted from a number of high-profile journalists who have lent their support to the program. In 2019, MediaWise launched its Ambassadors program with the signing of Lester Holt, news anchor for NBC Nightly News as its first ambassador (Bomey 2019). Ambassadors lend their credibility to the project and support the program by promoting awareness, speaking at events, and assisting in curriculum development. The Ambassador program includes seventeen prominent journalists, authors and influencers, such as author and television host Joan Lunden, PBS NewsHour’s Amna Navaz and Hari Sreenivasan, CNN news anchor Christiane Amanpour, and CBS’s Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan.

One of the most unique aspects of the MediaWise project is the development of their Teen Fact Checking Network (TFCN). In 2020, they joined 85 other international fact-checking organizations as a verified signatory of the IFAC's code of principles. The network is designed to deliver fact-checks by and for teenagers on topics that most impact teenagers in the form of social media video storytelling, a format most relatable to a generation of digital natives. Fact-checkers deliver their analyses through posts to Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Apple News, and poynter.org. where fact-checkers walk the audience through their methodology on how they fact-checked a claim, provide missing context behind the claim, and rate the claim in terms such as “legit” or “not legit” or “needs context”. As of 2020, the fact checking network had debunked over 400 claims in its two years of existence, ranging from misinformation related to COVID-19 paranoia to photos and videos related to the Black Lives Matter movement that were taken out of context. TFCN content has been viewed 53 million times and MediaWise considers this as proof they have achieved the goal of reaching 1 million students.

Debunking 400 claims hardly makes a dent in the sheer volume of misinformation existing on social media platforms. Between October and December 2020, Facebook used a staff of 35,000 to take down 1.3 billion fake accounts and removed more than 12 million pieces of content about COVID-19 and vaccines global health experts labelled as misinformation (Reuters 2021). The objective of the fact check videos is not to debunk every false claim posted to social media, but, rather, to teach other teenagers media literacy through demonstrating fact checking methodologies that can be applied to any claim (Grau 2020).

MediaWise has recently gained important partners in its fight against misinformation. In 2020, MediaWise partnered with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and Facebook to launch MediaWise for Seniors, a virtual program designed to equip people 50 years and older with media literacy skills to combat misinformation in topics, including politics and healthcare (Bomey 2020).

Through the use of a free online course available on the MediaWise website, MediaWise trained over 100,000 seniors on fact-checking methodologies. According to Mahadevan, the intent of the program was to get seniors to stop scrolling through social media and invest the time in fact-checking headlines. The program was featured on NBC’s Nightly News in May 2021 (NBCNews.com 2021).

The positive impact of the MediaWise for Seniors program as well as MediaWise fact-checking methodologies was validated by a study conducted by Stanford’s Social Media Lab (Moore and Hancock 2020). Based on pre- and post- course surveys taken by 145 participants who had taken the MediaWise for Seniors one hour-course two months before the 2020 election, course enrollees were able to classify stories as true or false 84.9 percent of the time, an improvement of 21.6 percent compared to prior to taking the course. Improvements were observed among participants regardless of their ideology.

Participants researched headlines to check for accuracy 69.9 percent of the time compared to 3 percent prior to taking the course. Stanford intends to publish the research and seek peer review in early 2021 (Dyakon 2020).

MediaWise is similar to other tech startups in that they are challenged to continue to find sources of funding, add resources to their team that share their entrepreneurial mindset, and respond to a rapidly changing technological landscape. Brand awareness can improve opportunities for grant funding, particularly with organizations not familiar with the major players in journalism and fact checking.

MediaWise continues to attempt to close the geographic, socio-economic, and generational divides that exist in our country with their media literacy programming. Mahadevan would like to see the TFCN expand from its current twelve to twenty-four fact checkers to high schools in every metropolitan area. Mahadevanalso stated that MediaWise goes to great lengths to ensure that it adheres to its original intent of including students from underserved and low-income communities. He also suggested that they target rural communities as they tend to be right leaning and more distrustful of traditional media.

Fact checking can be an arduous, time-intensive task. According to Mahadevan, a major challenge is keeping up with the changing nature and delivery of misinformation. The inclusion of automated fact-checking (AFC) tools into the MediaWise curriculum could be one way to expand the coverage and effectiveness of verified fact-checking signatories such as the TCFN. AFC involves the use of digital tools to identify, verify, and respond to misleading claims and can help in the creation of large, international fact-checking databases. AFC tools are particularly effective in identifying potential false claims and can help tag and filter out previously debunked claims so that time can be spent on the laborious task of verifying claims (Stitmann and Tompkins 2020).

MediaWise is an investment in a generation that will serve as future leaders of democracy in the United States. Indications are that the media literacy and fact-checking skills taught by the program are effective. Its success has been driven by a mix of a small but ambitious core team, partners that bring a variety of resources to the table, high-profile ambassadors, and talented teens. The project model appears to be one that could be applied globally. The success of MediaWise is a hopeful sign in winning the global war against misinformation.

Citations: 

Bomey, Nathan. “Why 'NBC Nightly News' Anchor Lester Holt Is Teaching Teens about Fact-Checking.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, February 14, 2019. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/02/13/nbc-ester-holt-poynter-institute-mediawis e-fact-checking/2857328002/.

Bomey, Nathan. “Helping Seniors Fight 'Infodemic': Poynter's MediaWise Combats Misinformation.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, June 24, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/06/24/poynter-mediawise-aarp-facebook-misinfor mation-fake-news-seniors/3241164001/.

Dyakon, Tina. “Poynter's MediaWise Training Significantly Increases People's Ability to Detect Disinformation, New Stanford Study Finds.” Poynter, December 14, 2020. https://www.poynter.org/news-release/2020/poynters-mediawise-training-significantly-increases- peoples-ability-to-detect-disinformation-new-stanford-study-finds/.

Grau, Mel. “Very Legit: MediaWise Teen Fact-Checkers Receive Global Recognition and Verification.” Poynter, May 7, 2020. https://www.poynter.org/news-release/2020/very-legit-mediawise-teen-fact-checkers-receive-glo bal-recognition-and-verification/.

International Fact-Checking Network. Poynter. (2021, April 28). https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/. Mahadevan, Alex. Interview by Mark Schumacher. Video call, June 23, 2021.

Moore, Ryan C. and Jeffrey T. Hancock. Stanford University. Whitepaper “The Effects of Online Disinformation Detection Training for Older Adults”, Stanford University, 2020. Accessed July 20, 2021. https://sml.stanford.edu/ml/2020/12/mediawise-white-paper.pdf

“Poynter Receives $3 Million from Google to Lead Program Teaching Teens to Tell Fact from Fiction Online.” The Pointer Institute, March 20, 2018. https://www.poynter.org/news-release/2018/poynter-receives-3-million-from-google-to-lead-pro gram-teaching-teens-to-tell-fact-from-fiction-online/.

Reuters Staff. “Facebook Says Took down 1.3 Billion Fake Accounts IN Oct-Dec.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, March 22, 2021. https://www.reuters.com/article/facebook-misinformation-int/facebook-says-took-down-1-3-billio n-fake-accounts-in-oct-dec-idUSKBN2BE12M.

Salmon, Felix. “Trust in Media Hits New Crisis Low.” Axios, January 21, 2021. https://www.axios.com/media-trust-crisis-2bf0ec1c-00c0-4901-9069-e26b21c283a9.html.

Stencel, Mark, Joel Luther, and Erica Ryan. “Fact-Checking Census Shows Slower Growth.” Poynter, June 3, 2021. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/fact-checking-census-shows-slower-growth/.

Stitmann, Julia and Andrew Tompkins. DW Akademie. “The Strengths and Weaknesses of Automated Fact-Checking Tools: DW: 17.07.2020.” DW.COM. Accessed July 20, 2021. https://www.dw.com/en/the-strengths-and-weaknesses-of-automated-fact-checking-tools/a-5395 6958.

“The Social Challenge: Fact Checking Social Misinformation.” NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, May 12, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/the-social-challenge-fact-checking-social-misinfor mation-111826501715.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Open Hearing. Testimony of Philip N. Howard, Oxford University, Foreign Influence on Social Media Platforms: Perspectives from ThirdParty Social Media Experts. 94th Cong., 2d Sess., August 1, 2018.

Weinberg, Sam, Sarah McGrew, Joel Breakstone, and Teresa Ortega. “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning.” Stanford Digital Repository, November 22, 2016. https://purl.stanford.edu/fv751yt5934.