Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/disinformation/page/5/)
At the end of the year, GIJN compiles a list of its most viewed stories and resources. Here’s the listing for 2020’s top performing stories, including stories on the good and bad of South African journalism, how the global pandemic is affecting Africa’s print newspapers, the year’s top investigative podcasts from around the world, and more.
For the past seven weeks, a special GIJN project, #gijnElectionWatchdog, has provided US reporters with tools to tackle the toughest election stories in daily tweets and weekly roundups. Here, with just a few days remaining til a hugely consequential election, we share quick-reference tools that matter in this period for time-pressed journalists.
In week six of GIJN’s project to arm US reporters with the tools for the toughest election stories, #gijnElectionWatchdog shared tools to unmask groups behind political ads, an AI-powered search function for any dataset, the list of rules restricting poll watchers in swing states, and a database of election sources searchable by state and category.
In week five of GIJN’s project to arm US reporters with tools for the toughest election stories, #gijnElectionWatchdog shared a tool to spot Twitter bots, a live dashboard to combat the hottest election disinformation efforts as they arise, a free cybersecurity toolkit for reporters, and tips for finding hard-to-access election sources.
For this week’s Friday 5, where GIJN rounds up key reads from around the world, we read about how researchers verified a chemical weapons attack in Syria, BBC News Labs’ new storytelling graphic for Facebook, and AP Stylebook’s latest election guide.
In week four of GIJN’s project to arm reporters with tools for the toughest election stories, #gijnElectionWatchdog shared a dataset of individual swing state electors, tools for exposing deepfake videos, an app to push back against online harassment of female reporters, and key tips on impact in a low-trust landscape.
In the first of three GIJN webinars focusing on the US 2020 election, Sarah Blaskey of the Miami Herald, Pulitzer-winning reporter David Cay Johnston, and AP’s race and ethnicity writer Kat Stafford set out the shocking stakes of the election, and offering key tips on how to tackle, and “land”, the stories that really need telling.
In its first week, #gijnElectionWatchdog showed reporters how to quickly flag campaign finance abuses; listed Twitter handles for nearly all US secretaries of state; explained America’s wildly different vote recount rules by state; and found a pioneering tool to dig into dark money ad spending on Facebook.
Over the past two years, words like “bots,” “botnets” and “trolls” have entered mainstream conversations about social networks and their impact on democracies. Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab laid out some of the working definitions and their methodologies to help identify, expose and explain disinformation online.
The stakes for the US election on November 3 are enormous — not just for Americans, but for the rest of the world. So, for the next two months, GIJN will be producing a daily stream of tips and tools most useful to reporters on the campaign front lines.