Graham Media Group and Fathm, a London-based news consultancy, are partnering to fight misinformation on Election Day in Texas, Florida, Michigan and Virginia.
The exclusive partnership will create a Trust Index team of internationally respected fact-checkers to flag trending misinformation and allow GMG newsrooms to correct the record for its viewers and online users. The fact-checking team will also invite audiences to share social media posts, emails and text messages for verification by the team of trained journalists. The combined effort is designed to cut through the fog of misinformation expected on social media on Election Day.
“Audiences turn to us to get the story right on and after Election Day,” said Catherine Badalamente, chief innovation officer for Graham Media Group. “Partnering with Fathm gives our newsrooms a globally tested tool to counter any deliberate attempts to confuse our communities.”
Fathm co-founders Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard are global experts in fighting misinformation, particularly around elections. They’ve built fact-checking projects in the U.S., U.K., India, Sweden and Mexico, and have trained hundreds of journalists worldwide. Earlier this year, Fathm worked with GMG newsroom to build verification systems that guided coverage through the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 election season.
“We are delighted that Fathm can continue to support GMG's Trust Index work, from its inception right through to what is a crucial day for robust, trusted journalism and the communities it serves,” Bell said. “Partnering with Graham Media Group for this work allows us to deploy crucial skills and lessons that we have learned from countering election-related misinformation across the world.”
GMG created the Trust Index fact-checking team early in 2020 to fight misinformation in its local markets. Trained team members representing all Graham newsrooms and the Graham Digital team used more than 1,000 audience tips to produce hundreds of daily broadcast and digital stories debunking questionable claims about COVID-19, U.S. elections and local concerns.
“Our newsrooms worked together this year to strengthen and continue to improve our verification systems,” said Mario Orellana, assistant news director at KSAT in San Antonio and co-founder of the Trust Index team. “The key to that is our audience who continue to submit ideas and claims that they find from social media and other places that we fact-check for them and set the record straight. It’s a critical role our teams embraced throughout 2020 to best serve our communities.”
Graham Media Group is comprised of seven local media hubs, Graham Digital and Social News Desk, delivering local news, programming, advertising solutions and digital media tools for television, online, mobile, OTT, podcasts and audio devices. We are dynamic, local brands that extend well beyond the traditional TV set. Our work helps inform, celebrate and empower the communities we serve. GMG operates in six regions: KPRC–Houston, WDIV–Detroit and WSLS–Roanoke (NBC); KSAT–San Antonio (ABC); WKMG–Orlando (CBS); WJXT–Jacksonville (fully local), and WCWJ–Jacksonville (CW). Based in Detroit, Graham Digital is a digital media and technology development group widely recognized as a leading industry innovator. Social News Desk, headquartered in Atlanta, provides its 2,500+ worldwide newsroom-customers with a single dashboard to publish, measure, curate and monetize local news content on social platforms.