Senior Vice President, News
TEGNA
TEGNA newsrooms have focused on transparency and real-time fact checking due to our audiences' lack of trust in recent voting processes. TEGNA was instrumental in working with RTDNA on a survey of local news consumers conducted late last year focusing on ways to build trust with our communities regarding our political coverage. The following are some of the key takeaways:
Consumers told us we would gain trust by covering topics that affect their lives versus the topics politicians set as talking points. Newsrooms like WBIR in Knoxville surveyed their audience on top local issues and committed to holding politicians to these topics in all interviews.
Example: WBIR:What matters to Knoxville voters
Example: WMAZ: 13WMAZ's Listening Lab returns for the 2024 Elections
Example: WPMT: What matters most to you in 2024? Take FOX43's Pennsylvania legislative survey
Our audience told us overwhelmingly that they would trust a news organization that consistently fact checked political ads and politicians' campaign comments. Every TEGNA newsroom has a unique fact checking system and standards called VERIFY.
Example: WTHR: Fact check: Are policing numbers cited by Hogsett and Shreve in Indy mayoral ads true?
Example: WTSP: Yes, Sen. Rich Scott said he will 'always protect IVF' after voting against IVF bill
Example: WXIA/VERIFY: Are claims in a Fani Willis campaign ad true?
Example: WPMT: Yes, electricity prices are up 25% under Biden as political ad claims
Example: WPMT: Yes, electricity prices are up 25% under Biden as political ad claims
Example: KSDK: Wesley Bell commits to protecting reproductive rights, despite Corey Bush's claim
Transparency in our coverage of the voting process is essential to building trust in election results. TEGNA newsrooms are digging deep into election and voting processes to help dispel rumors and disinformation.
Example: KING/VERIFY: Super Tuesday voting
The mission of all TEGNA journalists is to seek the truth. In 2024, we are also focused on stopping the spread of disinformation. With the surge of AI and an historic political year, we made sure our newsrooms are equipped to identify and alert audiences to false information and images.
In an unprecedented journalism training, all 3,000 TEGNA journalists received disinformation education in the first quarter 2024. The focus of this training was how to combat disinformation, specifically regarding AI and the 2024 election and to train all journalists to help our audience to be responsible news consumers.
The comprehensive training included understanding the capabilities of AI and other sources of manipulated information and how to recognize fake video and sound. The greatest tool to decipher false information is journalism. We are doubling down on basic investigative and digging skills.
Example: KARE: AI created fake Biden voice
Example: WTSP: How artificial intelligence is impacting elections and VERIFIED ways to spot it
Example: KPNX: ASU professor teaches how to detect candidate's phony claims
Example: WZZM: EXPLAINED: Rules surrounding broadcast political ads
VERIFY takes the disinformation training and shares it with our audience. VERIFY is a process in all TEGNA newsrooms that shows our audience how we fact check rumors or claims. We provide our sources up front with well tested graphics so our audience can trust the content. Our journalists are trained in the latest fact checking processes to vet the authenticity of videos and, photographs and how to deeply investigate false content widely shared on social media. We conducted research with two thousand local news viewers and asked them when they need help the most when it comes to deciphering false information and truth. The answer was during breaking news and breaking political news.
We trained all TEGNA newsrooms to add this VERIFY element to their breaking or big story coverage. When our audience is bombarded with information on their social media feeds about a breaking political news story they want to know, very simply what's true, what's not and what is still being confirmed. We've trained our newsrooms to add this element to big story coverage and breaking political news.
Example: WCNC/VERIFY: Fact-checking Bill Graham's political ad about Cannon Mills and China
Example: KGW: No, there's no way to fully stop political texts
Transparency into the actual voting process. Journalists and photojournalists live in the field to show democracy in action from voting locations.
Holding elected officials accountable for transparency in the voting process and communication to voters.
Factchecking and using VERIFY to fight disinformation aimed at vulnerable voters during voting hours. Our disinformation training specifically showed our newsrooms how disinformation has been used in the past to sway people from voting.
As stated above, VERIFY is a process unique to TEGNA stations that offers our audience a transparent look into our fact checking process.
The greatest tool to decipher false information is journalism. Local broadcast journalists are the most trusted source of news and information. Local broadcasters must work not only to search for the truth but also stop the spread of false information. At TEGNA, our journalists are uniquely prepared to do just that with deep training on how to combat disinformation and a process to share that information with our audience through VERIFY.