Category: Media Literacy

  • The political weaponry of disinformaton

    The political weaponry of disinformaton

    Begoña Gómez, the wife of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, was born a man by the name of Begoño. Some 500 kilos of gold were once found in her house on the Canary Islands. She is now being blackmailed with material stolen from her mobile phone while she was on a trip to Morocco. Oh, and she headed a drug-trafficking cartel.

    If you believe even some of these stories as a Spaniard, you’d think your country had gone insane. You’d think you were being ruled by a class of deceiving drug traffickers. Lies, or rather disinformation, are nothing new in Spain, but in recent years they have been forming increasingly coherent narratives of an alternative reality.

    They are often a fantasy that sometimes does brush up against reality: last June, several higher-ranking members of the governing party Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), or Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, were forced to step down due to a corruption case. Private messages emerged in which they talked about large sums of money and escort services.

    The case was particularly painful for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who came into power fighting corruption.

    In 2018, as leader of the opposition, he called a vote of no confidence involving then Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. That government fell, and since then Sánchez has led consecutive governments, on a promise to finally eradicate the systemic corruption that plagues Spain.

    “This [latest corruption case] is confirming the narrative that all politicians lie, all politicians steal, all politicians are there for their personal gain,” said Alba Tobella, director of Catalan fact-checking platform Verificat. “Every case of corruption serves to further reinforce this idea.”

    A flood of falsehoods

    Through their website and social media, Verificat checks the accuracy of news spread over the internet. They noticed that from the moment Sánchez came into power, institutions on the right have tried hard to discredit him.

    “Anything that can be used to delegitimize Pedro Sánchez will be used against him,” Tobella said. “Any failure in Spain is directly linked to Pedro Sánchez.”

    These disinformation campaigns were particularly evident during the 2017 referendum for independence of Catalonia, when falsehoods from both sides were widespread. That period was one of the reasons Verificat was founded.

    Another surge of false information swept through the country in 2024, following the flooding disaster in the Valencia area in which at least 229 people died. At the time, misinformation spread among the local population quickly, because people felt the government had failed to protect them.

    What is new though, Tobella said, is that hoaxes are becoming increasingly complex and nuanced. She notes a normalization of these alternative realities, which some people are completely immersed in.

    “It’s like a complete disconnection of the audience from the truth, as well as a lack of interest in seeking the facts,” she said.

    The spreaders of fabricated “facts”

    Much of the disinformation reaches people through social media and WhatsApp messages, as is shown on the websites of fact checkers like Verificat. Some websites and media outlets also contain this kind of fake news, and it is sometimes spread by politicians such as Santiago Abascal, leader of radical-right party Vox.

    Now, following the latest corruption cases involving the PSOE, misinformation has again found fertile ground. Even though Sánchez has acted and those involved in the corruption have stepped down, a general feeling of being unprotected persists among the Spanish population. In a Eurobarometer survey this summer, a whopping 90% of Spaniards said they considered corruption to be “widespread” — one of the worst scores in the EU.

    Sebastiaan Faber, a professor of Hispanic Studies at Oberlin College in the United States, sees parallels with what is happening in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

    “What is going on is a very conscious undermining of trust,” Faber said. “Creating doubt about science, about the judicial system, public health institutions. The goal is to push people away from traditional institutions so that maintaining them will be seen as less important.”

    Faber, who wrote several books about Spain, the Spanish Civil War and the long dictatorship under Francisco Franco that ended in 1975, notes clear links between the way misinformation is used as a political tool in Spain and the United States.

    “They, for instance, try to keep sending the message that any left-leaning government is illegitimate,” Faber said. “That goes back to ’36. The Franco regime was based on the idea that the elected government had forged the election results and that they were financed by Russia, with anti-Spanish ideas. It’s always a repetition of portraying the left as immoral.”

    Actual corruption and phony accusations

    Faber sees a clear connection between these Francoist tactics and Trumpism. Figures surrounding Trump during his rise, such as his former political advisor Steve Bannon, represent a group of people that actively try to deconstruct democracy.

    Bannon once famously stated: “Flood the zone with shit.” He was referring to the creation of a deluge of half-truths and lies so consistent that people lose track of reality. Social media are an effective way to do so.

    These tactics of disinformation campaigns crossed the ocean twice, Faber said. It could be seen under Franco, who constantly spread lies about the legitimate Segunda Republica government of Spain.

    That made its way up to the United States. There, similar lies and disinformation campaigns culminated in Trump loyalists storming the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory. These same tactics, a deluge of disinformation, are now being copied again in Europe to delegitimize people in power, such as Pedro Sánchez.

    Faber doubts that the public is ready to believe all the disinformation about Sànchez even with the proven case of corruption in the Prime Minister’s own political party. “I would say that the receptiveness for fake news is very much defined by your political preferences and the information bubbles [you] are in,” he said.

    Alienating voters

    The corruption case might leave those on the right feeling further alienated from the left-wing government however, and they might start to believe additional falsehoods about the government and Sánchez.

    And on the left, a general sense of hopelessness has now taken hold, as becomes clear when speaking with Spaniards about the case since the story of the corruption case broke.

    Tobella said that what’s important here, is that people understand that it’s never only ‘the other side’ that behaves badly. For example, from a Catalonian perspective, where sentiments can at times be very anti-Spanish, there’s a long-standing myth that Catalonian politicians are less corrupt than those politicians in the national government in Madrid.

    At the time of the interview with Tobella, the corruption case involving Catalonian leader Jordi Pujol had just begun. Pujol was in power for 24 years, and now faces charges of money laundering and criminal association.

    “These accusations are extremely serious,” Tobella said. “If it is said that there is no corruption in Catalonia, I think that that is maybe the oldest myth going around. It is clear that there are also very serious cases here.”

    So what can be done to counter the weakening of democracy through disinformation, especially when an alternative narrative does intersect with reality, as happens with these corruption cases? Debunk the lies, sift through hoaxes and show where claims rely on questionable evidence. In short, flood the zone with truth.

    “Well, what we already do, right?” Tobella said.

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is new about the latest round of disinformation in Spain?

    2. Why might disinformation campaigns have limited power when it comes to changing the minds of political supporters?

    3. Do you generally trust the politicians representing you in government? What affects how you feel about them?

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  • You must use AI! Don’t use AI!

    You must use AI! Don’t use AI!

    But even when people are encouraged to use AI, that use comes with restrictions and these restrictions will differ from workplace to workplace.

    Rules for use

    At Reuters, Barrett said, there is a set of AI principles that all journalists must follow and a corporate policy that covers the use of AI for all use of data and tools throughout the organization.

    “We have a rule that no visuals may be created or edited using generative AI as news photos must show reality as it happened in front of the camera,” she said. “All the tools we are creating and approving for wider use are based on taking source material, creating content or analysis from that and, crucially, checking the veracity before publishing. Everything must keep to our tone and standards.”

    At Reuters, all reporters and photojournalists are accountable for everything they publish, Barrett said. “If we find that there has been irresponsible use of AI, there is a chain of custody through our editing systems which means we can track back to where the AI was used badly,” she said.

    Reuters is trying to stay ahead of the game in a world that is rapidly incorporating AI into just about everything. But not all organizations have the resources to keep up.

    For many of the people Savannah Jenkins works with, AI is viewed as a direct threat to their business. Jenkins is a communications manager at Onja, a social enterprise in Madagascar that trains underprivileged youth to become software developers. “It’s one of the world’s poorest nations and the jobs these students land after the program allow them to support their families and extricate themselves from poverty,” Jenkins said. “AI is a direct threat to entry-level coders and the enterprise is having to adapt to this threat.”

    Still, she acknowledged that overall, it is generally accepted that AI is here to stay and that it can benefit even small organizations. “As a comms professional working in the nonprofit space, there are a lot of tools that can help small, under-resourced teams do more, especially around content development,” she said. “For example, the AI-powered tools in Canva allow smaller outfits to deliver highquality graphics.”

    An AI future in flux

    The bottom line is that we are in an experimental period where a very new technology is still being developed and tried out in different ways that are new and untested.

    This creates all kinds of worries for people like Barrett.

    “I worry that somebody will steal a lead on us,” she said. “Another publisher, a competitor and, most likely, one of the AI companies coming up with a whizz-bang AI-driven news service or product that damages our business, our industry and democracy of well-informed people.”

    She also worries that someone will use a tool that has not properly been tested and inadvertently divulge information from Reuters that shouldn’t go out to the public.

    Her worries aren’t confined to internal use at Reuters. “I also worry about people getting into arguments or obsessive conversations with AI tools,” she said. “There is increasing proof that the sycophancy and attempts to keep users engaged with the chatbots can be very bad for you.”

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why is the use of AI in the work world so inconsistent?

    2. Why is it important for corporations and nonprofits to have policies in place on the use of AI?

    3. Do you feel prepared to use AI in any job you might get?

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  • Can we use AI intelligently?

    Can we use AI intelligently?

    Artificial intelligence apps are too useful to avoid. But can schools use them in ways that won’t harm creativity or turn students into robots?

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  • Let’s have no locks on learning

    Let’s have no locks on learning

    At News Decoder we believe that information should flow across borders and that you shouldn’t need money to access it. That’s why we’ve created resources for both young people and educators that are open access — they are free and available to anyone. It is our mission, after all, to inform, connect and empower young people to be engaged citizens and changemakers locally, nationally and globally.

    These free resources include articles, podcasts and videos that offer young people tips on writing and reporting and information they need to be media literate such as guides for fact-checking news stories and verifying the accuracy of information. We also make publicly accessible our Decoder Dialogues —  in which we gather young people from different countries together with experts to talk about an important topic. You can watch our latest Decoder Dialogue on how young people speak out and stand up that took place 2 December. 

    For a great read on how some places are addressing the problems of paywalls on academic and scientific research, check out Charissa Eggers recent article for News Decoder. 

    Below are a series of useful guides for student journalists or for anyone who wants to become a better storyteller. 

    And check out more of our open access learning resources. 

    https://news-decoder.com/top-tips-can-you-be-the-bearer-of-good-news/ 

     

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  • Can you believe it? | News Decoder

    Can you believe it? | News Decoder

    Can you tell the difference between a rumor and fact?

    Let’s start with gossip. That’s where you talk or chat with people about other people. We do this all the time, right? Something becomes a rumor when you or someone else learn something specific through all the chit chat and then pass it on, through chats with other people or through social media.

    A rumor can be about anyone and anything. The more nasty or naughty the tidbit, the greater the chance people will pass it on. When enough people spread it, it becomes viral. That’s where it seems to take on a life of its own.

    A fact is something that can be proven or disproven. The thing is, both fact and rumor can be accepted as a sort of truth. In the classic song “The Boxer,” the American musician Paul Simon once sang, “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

    Once a piece of information has gone viral, whether fact or fiction, it is difficult to convince people who have accepted it that it isn’t true.

    Fact and fiction

    That’s why it is important — if you care about truth, that is — to determine whether or not a rumor is based on fact before you pass it on. That’s what ethical journalists do. Reporting is about finding evidence that can show whether something is true. Without evidence, journalists shouldn’t report something, or if they do they must make sure their readers or listeners understand that the information is based on speculation or unproven rumor.

    There are two types of evidence they will look for: direct evidence and indirect evidence. The first is information you get first-hand — you experience or observe something yourself. All else is indirect. Rumor is third-hand: someone heard something from someone who heard it from the person who experienced it.

    Most times you don’t know how many “hands” information has been through before it comes to you. Understand that in general, stories change every time they pass from one person to another.

    If you don’t want to become a source of misinformation, then before you tell a story or pass on some piece of information, ask yourself these questions:

    → How do I know it?

    → Where did I get that information and do I know where that person or source got it?

    → Can I trace the information back to the original source?

    → What don’t I know about this?

    Original and secondary sources

    An original source might be yourself, if you were there when something happened. It might be a story told you by someone who was there when something happened — an eyewitness. It might be a report or study authored by someone or a group of people who gathered the data themselves.

    Keep in mind though, that people see and experience things differently and two people who are eyewitness to the same event might have remarkably different memories of that event. How they tell a story often depends on their perspective and that often depends on how they relate to the people involved.

    If you grow up with dogs, then when you see a big dog barking you might interpret that as the dog wants to play. But if you have been bitten by a dog, then a big dog barking seems threatening. Same dog, same circumstance, but contrasting perspectives based on your previous experience.

    Pretty much everything else is second-hand: A report that gets its information from data collected elsewhere or from a study done by other researchers; a story told to you by someone who spoke to the person who experienced it.

    But how do videos come into play? You see a video taken by someone else. That’s second-hand. But don’t you see what the person who took the video sees? Isn’t that almost the same as being an eyewitness?

    Not really. Consider this. Someone tells you about an event. You say: “How do you know that happened?” They say: “I was there. I saw it.” That’s pretty convincing. Now, if they say: “I saw the video.” That’s isn’t as convincing. Why? Because you know that the video might not have shown all of what happened. It might have left out something significant. It might even have been edited or doctored in some way.

    Is there evidence?

    Alone, any one source of information might not be convincing, even eyewitness testimony. That’s why when ethical reporters are making accusations in a story or on a podcast, they provide multiple, different types of evidence — a story from an eyewitness, bolstered by an email sent to the person, along with a video, and data from a report.

    It’s kind of like those scenes in murder mysteries where someone has to provide a solid alibi. They can say they were with their spouse, but do you believe the spouse?

    If they were caught on CCTV, that’s pretty convincing. Oh, there’s that parking ticket they got when they were at the movies. And in their coat pocket is the receipt for the popcorn and soda they bought with a date and time on it.

    Now, you don’t have to provide all that evidence every time you pass on a story you heard or read. If that were a requirement, conversations would turn really dull. We are all storytellers and we are geared to entertain. That means that when we tell a story we want to make it a good one. We exaggerate a little. We emphasize some parts and not others.

    The goal here isn’t to take that fun away. But we do have a worldwide problem of misinformation and disinformation.

    Do you want to be part of that problem or part of a solution? If the latter, all you have to do is this: Recognize what you actually know and separate it in your head from what you heard or saw second hand (from a video or photo or documentary) and let people know where you got that information so they can know.

    Don’t pass on information as true when it might not be true or if it is only partially true. Don’t pretend to be more authoritative than you are.

    And perhaps most important: What you don’t know might be as important as what you do know.

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is an example of an original source?

    2. Why should you not totally trust information from a video?

    3. Can you think of a a time when your memory of an event differed from that of someone else who was there?

     

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  • Disinformation and the decline of democracy

    Disinformation and the decline of democracy

    The unprecedented mob assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 represents perhaps the most stunning collision yet between the world of online disinformation and reality.

    The supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump who broke into Congress did so in the belief that the U.S. election was stolen from them after weeks of consuming unproven narratives about “ballot dumps,” manipulated voting machines and Democrat big-city corruption. Some — including the woman who was shot dead — were driven by the discredited QAnon conspiracy theory that represents Democratic Party elites as a pedophile ring and Trump as the savior.

    It’s tempting to hope that disinformation and its corrosive effects on democracy may have reached a high-water mark with the events of January 6 and the end of Trump’s presidency. But trends in technology and society’s increasing separation into social media echo chambers suggest that worse may be to come.

    Imagine for a moment if video of the Capitol riot had been manipulated to replace the faces of Trump supporters with those of known protestors for antifa, a left-wing, anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement. This would have bolstered the unproven story that has emerged about a “false flag” operation. Or imagine if thousands of different stories written by artificial intelligence software and pedaling that version of events had flooded social media and been picked up by news organizations in the hours after the assault.

    That technology not only exists. It’s getting more sophisticated and easier to access by the day.

    Trust in democracy is eroding.

    Deepfake, or synthetic, videos are starting to seep from pornography — where they’ve mostly been concentrated — into the world of politics. A deepfake of former President Barack Obama using an expletive to describe Trump has garnered over eight million views on YouTube since it was released in 2018.

    Most anyone familiar with Obama’s appearance and speaking style can tell there’s something amiss with that video. But two years is an eternity in AI-driven technology and many experts believe it will soon be impossible for the human eye and ear to spot the best deepfakes.

    A deepfake specialist was hailed early last year for using freely available software to “de-age” Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci in the movie “The Irishman,” producing a result that many critics considered superior to the work of the visual-effects supervisor in the actual film.

    In recent years, the sense of shared, objective reality and trust in institutions have already come under strain as social media bubbles hasten the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories. The worry is that deepfakes and other AI-generated content will supercharge this trend in coming years.

    “This is disastrous to any liberal democratic model because in a world where anything can be faked, everyone becomes a target,” Nina Schick, the author of “Deepfakes — The Coming Infopocalypse,” told U.S. author Sam Harris in a recent podcast.

    “But even more than that, if anything can be faked … everything can also be denied. So the very basis of what is reality starts to become corroded.”

    Governments must do more to combat disinformation.

    Illustrating her point is reaction to Trump’s video statement released a day after the storming of Congress. While some of his followers online saw it as a betrayal, others reassured themselves by saying it was a deepfake.

    On the text side, the advent of GPT-3 — an AI program that can produce articles indistinguishable from those written by humans — has potentially powerful implications for disinformation. Writing bots could be programmed to produce fake articles or spew political and racial hatred at a volume that could overwhelm text based on facts and moderation.

    Society has been grappling with written fake news for years and photographs have long been easily manipulated through software. But convincingly faked videos and AI-generated stories seem to many to represent a deeper, more viral threat to reality-based discourse.

    It’s clear that there’s no silver-bullet solution to the disinformation problem. Social media platforms like Facebook have a major role to play and are developing their own AI technology to better detect fake content. While fakers are likely to keep evolving to stay ahead, stricter policing and quicker action by online platforms can at least limit the impact of false videos and stories.

    Governments are coming under pressure to push Big Tech into taking a harder line against fake news, including through regulation. Authorities can devote more funding to digital media literacy programs in schools and elsewhere to help individuals become more alert and proficient in identifying suspect content.

    When it comes down to it, the real power of fake news hinges on those who believe it and spread it.

    Questions to consider:

    1. How can technology be used to spread fake news?

    2. Why is disinformation potentially harmful to democracy?

    3. How do you think the rise of AI technology will affect the type of information people consume?

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  • How one young woman broke free of a media addiction

    How one young woman broke free of a media addiction

    I knew every word to the saddest songs on my playlist. Not because I loved music, but because depression had become my language. I was 14, lying in my room with my family just beyond the door, close enough to hear their voices, far enough that they might as well have been in another country.

    I had been expelled from school months earlier. “Disciplinary issues,” they called it. My family’s disappointment sat heavy in our home, unspoken but everywhere. We lived together, ate together, but there was no closeness, no one I could talk to.

    I tried to find help. I downloaded mental health apps, desperate for someone, anyone, to talk to. Every single one wanted money: subscriptions, fees, payments I couldn’t afford. I stared at those payment screens feeling like I was drowning, watching help float just out of reach.

    That’s when the screen became my only escape. It started two years earlier, in Primary 6, when house workers casually showed me explicit images on their phones. I was just a child; curious, confused, not understanding what I was seeing. Then it continued at school with friends, and something awakened in me that I didn’t know how to name or control.

    Now, alone and depressed, pornography became my refuge. Not because it made me happy, but because for a few minutes, it made me feel something other than suffocating sadness. It was free. It was always available. And unlike everyone in my life, it didn’t judge me.

    A cycle begins

    I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to be addicted. At first, it felt harmless, a way to escape. I told myself, It’s just this once. I’m in control. But addiction is a liar. Soon, it wasn’t me making the choices, the choices were making me.

    I became a professional actor: smiling, joking, saying “I’m fine.” Inside, I was drowning. Mornings brought disgust and broken promises. “This is the last time,” I would whisper. By evening, I was back in the same cycle.

    Being a Christian made it worse. How could I worship on Sunday and fall back into the same pit during the week? I carried my Bible with trembling hands, wondering: Does God still want me? Is He tired of forgiving me?

    What made everything harder was the silence; not just mine, but from my entire community.

    In many African homes, conversations about struggles don’t happen. Children are raised to “be strong,” “obey,” and “not bring shame.” So, when addiction creeps in, we already know: I can’t tell my parents because we know the response is often punishment and disappointment rather than compassion and feeling secure.

    The things we don’t discuss

    My family was no different. We shared meals, went to church together. But I couldn’t tell them about the depression that made me want to die, or the addiction consuming me. Not because they were cruel, but because we’d never learned how to talk about things that hurt.

    In many communities, struggles like pornography are labeled as spiritual weakness rather than human pain. Youth are told to “pray harder” while root wounds remain untouched. Girls especially face pressure to be “good daughters” because any confession can bring family shame.

    After my expulsion, I carried not just my own shame, but my family’s disappointment, the fear of being labeled a failure, the burden of disgrace.

    Addiction thrives in that silence. It feeds on fear; fear of punishment, of shame, of losing respect. So, we hide behind grades, church attendance, fake smiles. Inside, we are prisoners.

    For Christians struggling with addiction, the battle isn’t linear. One day you pray and feel close to God; the next, guilt crashes down. You confess, repent, hope but relapse comes again. I can’t get free. I’m weak. I keep failing.

    Faith meets struggle.

    Each fall reinforces the lie that you’re beyond redemption. You watch others grow in faith and compare your hidden failures to their visible victories. The church can make this harder. Fear of gossip or rejection stops you from seeking support. If they knew, would they still respect me?

    I struggled with this constantly. Sundays brought worship and hope. By Tuesday, I’d be back in the cycle, convinced I’d disappointed God one too many times. Everyone seemed to have faith figured out while I failed again and again.

    It’s strange having a full contact list but feeling completely alone. People assume you’re fine. “You’re always smiling,” they say. That image becomes a trap. If you break the mask, they might judge.

    The worst I’ve discovered is that the more people around you, the lonelier you feel. Addiction thrives in isolation. Your mind becomes a battlefield of self-condemnation and guilt. You wonder if anyone could love you as you are not as the image you show.

    When you reach out, friends often laugh it off or assume you’re exaggerating. Each failed attempt reinforces that isolation is safer than vulnerability. Trust issues build. You question whether anyone can handle your truth.

    Small steps forward 

    I haven’t stopped struggling. But I’ve discovered steps that help me keep moving forward. God’s presence never left me, even when I couldn’t feel it. Even in the darkest moments, there was a whisper: You are not finished. I’m still here.

    I’ve learned to pray honestly. One night I prayed: “God, I’m tired. I failed again.” That messy prayer brought relief. God doesn’t need eloquence, He wants honesty.

    Scripture became my anchor: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). These words remind me that weakness doesn’t disqualify me.

    I’ve sought godly friendship. Sharing my struggle with a mentor brought prayer, guidance, and relief I hadn’t felt in years. Accountability isn’t about judgment; it’s about having allies who speak truth when you’re too weary.

    I celebrate small wins: resisting harmful content one morning, admitting a relapse to a friend, choosing honesty over shame. These moments prove God is working, even if change feels slow.

    Most importantly, I keep returning to God. After rough weeks, I kneel and whisper, “I’m here again, God,” and find quiet peace. The journey isn’t linear, but persistent return is how healing begins.

    Lessons and hope 

    Silence makes struggle worse; speaking lifts the burden. Faith doesn’t remove struggle, but gives hope and a path forward. Vulnerability is strength. Grace works in the mess. Small wins matter.

    If you feel trapped by addiction, shame or loneliness: you are not alone, and your story isn’t finished. God sees every hidden struggle, every tear, every relapse, every moment you’ve smiled while breaking inside. His love is stronger than any fear or guilt you carry.

    Change may be slow. You may stumble again. But every honest step toward God, every whispered prayer, every confession is victory. The times you felt weakest may be when God was shaping your heart for strength.

    Do not be discouraged by setbacks. Healing is a process. God’s timing is perfect, his grace persistent. You are not defined by your struggles; you’re defined by the God who pursues you relentlessly and turns brokenness into testimony.

    To my fellow young Africans carrying battles in silence: I see you. Your pain is real. The silence in your home is real. But so is God’s grace, the possibility of healing, and the chance that your story could be the hope someone else needs.

    I am still on this journey. There are days when old habits call, when depression threatens, when I feel eight years of struggle. But I’m learning that every day I turn back to God, I choose life over death, hope over despair, truth over silence.

    Remember: hope is not passive. It’s a daily choice to trust that God sees you, values you and has a purpose for you. Your story is not over. It is still being written, and your struggles are chapters, not the conclusion. Break the silence. Reach out. Trust that there is grace enough for every fall, love enough for every shame and hope enough for every tomorrow.

    You are not alone.

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why might someone turn to media, like pornography, as a way to escape depression or loneliness?

    2. Why do you think media addiction is so difficult to break from?

    3. If you knew of someone with an addiction, how might you help them free themselves from it?

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  • Which way do you lean?

    Which way do you lean?

    On November 26 dozens of articles written by News Decoder students will go to a panel of three judges as part of our twice-yearly storytelling competition. One of the criteria they will use to decide on the winners is this: Did the student report the story objectively, without bias? It is one of five criteria (another being total subjectivity on the part of each judge — sometimes a story is just a really great story).

    Here is the question: How does one define bias? You’d think I’d be able to answer this question easily, since I’ve written whole articles on objectivity, which is commonly thought of as the absence of bias. Webster’s Dictionary defines bias as an inclination of temperament or outlook, or an instance of such prejudice.

    Basically, you are for something or against something. A problem with trying to eliminate bias is often we don’t recognize when we lean more one way or another. If something is true it is true, right? How can truth be biased? But how many ridiculous arguments revolve around competing definitions of truth?

    News Decoder correspondent Enock Wanderema is an experienced journalist but he’s currently studying behavioral science. Two things he’s been thinking about are what is known as availability bias and confirmation bias.

    Availability bias is our tendency to rely on what we can remember. If we can remember it, it seems more important or more true. That leads to us raising importance stuff that recently happened since we remember it more easily.

    With confirmation bias, we tend to search for, interpret and remember information that confirms what we already believe and we overlook anything that contradicts those beliefs.

    “This happens automatically because constantly questioning everything we believe would be cognitively exhausting,” he wrote. “It means we can become trapped in false beliefs even when contradictory evidence accumulates and this matters enormously in contexts that are complex, novel, abstract or ideologically loaded; exactly the kinds of situations modern life presents constantly, but which were rare in ancestral environments.”

    Bias in journalism

    This becomes more problematic when we talk about journalists. “Journalists are the primary gatekeepers of information about complex issues people cannot directly experience but journalists are humans with the same biases,” Wanderema said.

    These biases come into play with the stories reporters or news organizations choose to cover or not cover. They inadvertently rely on what they remember and are familiar with when deciding if something is important enough to cover and deciding the events and people to ignore.

    This can lead to whole populations of people made invisible and important events ignored. If something has been happening and no one has covered it, how important can it be?

    News Decoder Correspondent Paul Sochaczewski struggles with the idea of bias not only with news stories but in writing non-fiction biographies of people long dead. “All journalism has bias,” he wrote. “Point of view, word choice, selection of details, who to quote and accuracy of that quote and so on.”

    In a 300-page book you can’t tell someone’s whole life story, but in summing up the life it is the biographer who decides what events are important and which ones paint the most accurate portrait of a person. It is the biographer who decides what to leave out.

    A picture of reality

    In some ways bias in storytelling is like the decisions a photographer makes in taking a photo. How many photos taken of me made me look awful? And yet there were a few that made me look better than I generally do. It had to do with the lighting available at the time and the photographer’s desire to make me look good.

    The photographer isn’t making anything up but by adjusting where I stand, what’s around me, how my hair falls — and having the sun on my face the right way, she can change my look from an old hag who just woke up in a terrible mood to a beautiful person in the prime of her life.

    News Decoder Correspondent Barry Moody says that you show bias when you lean towards one side or the other, either in the way you present the information or in giving more space to one side of an argument. Instead, you should present the facts and let your readers decide whether they have an opinion. “But don’t allow your own, either consciously or subconsciously to intrude,” he said.

    Kirby Moss, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the California Polytechnic University Humboldt in California sees bias as the inability or lack of awareness to critique your own perspective.

    That goes back to the notion of objectivity being the absence of bias. It is difficult to eliminate our own bias if we don’t recognize it in the first place.

    Wanderema said that our biases are often mental shortcuts that allow us to process the too much information we are constantly bombarded with, most of it from media rather than from direct experience. We pay attention to some things but not others. We are skeptical of some facts but easily accept others.

    “The result is a complex feedback loop where journalists’ biases shape coverage, coverage triggers audience biases, audience preferences reinforce journalistic practices and the entire system systematically distorts public understanding of reality,” Wanderema said. “Not through deliberate deception, but through the predictable operation of cognitive shortcuts that evolved to help humans navigate immediate physical environments.”

    Personally, in addressing the thorny problem of bias, I rely on what I have long decided should be the first rule of journalism: honesty. When reporting, I try to lay out facts as I’ve discovered them, after making a genuine effort to explore different perspectives and sides. But as Moss explained, it is important that I explore my own perspective so that I can then fess up to readers my own biases and conclusions. This lets them know where I stand so that they can accept or reject the conclusions I’ve made.

    In trying to eliminate our biases, we end up deceiving not just our readers, but ourselves.

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is confirmation bias?

    2. In what ways can personal bias affect what stories you choose to tell?

    3. In what ways do you think that you are biased?

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  • When a company’s enviro claims sound convincing …

    When a company’s enviro claims sound convincing …

    Many companies contribute to the climate crisis and make a profit doing so. As consumers and governments pressure them to reduce their carbon emissions, they look for ways to make themselves appear environmentally friendly. This is called green marketing.

    As a journalist, you need to learn to spot what a business really means by its green marketing.

    Greenwashing is when a brand makes itself seem more sustainable than it really is, as a way to get consumers to buy their product. For example, let’s look at fashion, an industry that is responsible for between 2 and 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

    In the absence of environmental legislation around the fashion industry a business might get themselves certified under a sustainability certification scheme — these are standards developed by governments or industry groups or NGOs to measure such things as energy efficiency or processes that are low carbon or carbon neutral. There are more than 100 different such certification programs.

    Companies tout these certifications. But a 2022 study by the Changing Markets Foundation (CMF) found that the standards set by the majority of the 10 or more popular certification initiatives for the fashion industry aren’t difficult to meet and lack accountability.

    Artificial claims about sustainability

    Fast fashion relies on cheap synthetic fibers, which are produced from fossil fuels such as oil and gas. And while you might assume that clothing with labels such as “eco” or “sustainable” might have fewer synthetics, you’d unfortunately be wrong.

    Another study by CMF found that H&M’s “conscious” clothing range, for example, contained 72% synthetics — which was higher than the percentage in their main collection (61%). And it’s not just H&M. While the same study found that 39% of products made some kind of green claim, almost 60% of these claims did not match the guidelines set out by the UK Competition and Markets Authority.

    The same is happening in the meat and dairy industry. Companies say they are reducing their environmental footprint by engaging in “regenerative agriculture”, a farming approach that aims to restore and improve ecosystem health. They argue that it reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps store carbon in the soil.

    But relying on carbon storing in soil is not enough. An article in Nature Communications found that around 135 gigatonnes of stored carbon would be required to offset the emissions that come from the agriculture sector. This is roughly equivalent to the amount of carbon lost due to agriculture over the past 12,000 years, according to CMF.

    But companies grab onto these empty promises, perhaps knowing that the general public might only see regenerative agriculture and other “green narratives” as promising.

    Look for real solutions to climate change.

    For example, Nestlé tells their customers that it is addressing the carbon footprint of the agriculture industry by supporting regenerative agriculture, stating on its website that in 2024, some 21% of the ingredients they source come from farmers adopting regenerative agriculture practices.

    When you understand that regenerative agriculture is not the solution it has been made out to be, only then can you see through Nestlé’s branding.

    So how can you spot greenwashing?

    Let’s say you saw a press release from a company in an industry that has historically relied heavily on fossil fuels. It tells its readers that it plans to be carbon neutral by a certain date, or that it’s using recycled materials for a large portion of its production, or that its future is “green”.

    You might first wonder, is this an example of how companies are moving away from fossil fuels and towards a green future? How can you tell?

    1. Be skeptical.

    When something has to tell you that it is green, it might not be. Start your investigation right there.

    For example, if you were looking at Nestlé’s regenerative agriculture campaign, you would need to find out what regenerative agriculture is and how much it is indeed reducing greenhouse gas emissions. You can do this by starting with a good Google search: e.g “regenerative agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions”.

    Once you click on a number of articles that report on this topic, you’ll be able to read about the different studies and data into the topic. Follow the sources used when an article cites a study or data. The article should hyperlink or list the sources. But those hyperlinks might take you to other secondary sources — other articles that cited the same data.

    For example, an article might cite this statistic: sustainability certifications increase consumer willingness to pay by approximately 7% on average. The article might cite as the source this study published in the journal Nature. But that article isn’t the original source of that data. It came from a 2014 study published in the Journal of Retailing.

    So try to find the primary source and see how credible or reputable it is. Who conducted the research in the first place?

    If you wanted to find out what H&M’s “conscious” range really meant, you would start by looking at H&M’s website and reports to look further into their claims. Then, follow those claims.

    2. Research the wider industry.

    Whether you’re reporting on fashion, agriculture or any other industry, look into where its emissions are coming from, which companies are claiming what and what the evidence says needs to be done in order for these industries to reduce their emissions.

    Providing context is important. What percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions is this industry responsible for? Is it getting better or worse? What legislation is in place to reduce emissions from these industries? In order for you and your audience to understand the greenwashing of any company, this background information is vital.

    3. Go straight to the company.

    Once you’ve conducted some initial research, follow up with the company if you are using it as an example or focus for your article. On Nestlé’s website, for example, you can find contact details for their communications, media or PR department. Send them an email saying something like the following:

    “I am writing an article on regenerative agriculture and I’ve found some studies that show that soil sequestration through these practices are in fact not enough to be a real climate solution. Can you please provide me with a comment on what Nestlé thinks about this?”

    They might not answer, but that also says a lot. If they don’t reply to you after one or two follow-up emails, you might try calling them.

    If you try several times and in different ways to contact them and they failed to respond, you can state that in your article. That way your readers know you made the effort.

    Claims from corporations that they are doing all they can to help the planet are easy to make. But if we really want to slow down climate change, significant efforts have to be made. And it is the role of journalists to hold companies to account for the claims they make.

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is “greenwashing”

    2. What is one example of greenwashing?

    3. What criteria do you use when deciding whether to buy a company’s product?

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  • Can journalists coexist with AI?

    Can journalists coexist with AI?

    But then the same thing could be happening now to the heads of news organizations who then subsequently pull back their journalists from various news beats. Since those news organizations are the ones who report news, would we ever know that was happening?

    The reality is that artificial intelligence could kill journalism without replacing it, leaving people without information they can rely on. When there are no reliable, credible sources of news, rumors spread and take on a life of their own. People panic and riot and revolt based on fears born from misinformation. Lawlessness prevails.

    Do algorithms have all the answers?

    Right now, entire news organizations are disappearing. The Brookings report found that last year some 2.5 local news outlets folded every week in the United States. Data collected by researcher Amy Watson in August 2023 found that in the UK, each year over a 10-year period ending 2022, more news outlets closed than were launched.

    CNN reported in June 2023 that Germany’s biggest news organization, Bild, was laying off 20% of its employees, replacing them with artificial intelligence.

    But ChatGPT had this to say: “ Rather than viewing AI as a threat, journalists can leverage technology to enhance their work. Automated tools can assist with tasks such as data analysis, fact-checking and content distribution, freeing up time for reporters to focus on more complex and impactful storytelling.”

    One of News Decoder’s many human correspondents, Tom Heneghan, spoke to students on this topic in November and expressed some optimism.

    “It will take away a lot of the drudge work, the donkey work that journalists have to do,” Heneghan said. “It’s amazing how much work is done by somebody at a much higher level than what is actually needed.”

    Working with artificial intelligence

    Once those tasks are automated, the journalist can pursue more substantive stories, Heneghan said. Plus the evolving sophistication of things like deep fake technology will make tasks like fact-checking and verification more important. “

    That’s going to come up more and more,” Heneghan said. “What artificial intelligence takes away may actually create some other jobs.”

    So here’s the thing: We wouldn’t have to fear AI eliminating the crucial role of journalism — informing the public with accurate information, reporting from multiple perspectives so that minority voices are heard and uncovering corruption, exploitation and oppression — if the businesses that controlled the purse strings of journalism were committed to its public service functions.

    I then asked ChatGPT this question: Are media corporations driven solely by money?

    It concluded: “While financial considerations undoubtedly influence the actions of media corporations, they are not the sole driving force behind their decisions.” It went on: “A complex interplay of financial goals, societal responsibilities and individual values shapes the behavior of these entities.

    Understanding this multifaceted nature is essential for accurately assessing the role and impact of media corporations in modern society.” I found that reassuring, until I glanced at the disclaimer at the bottom of the AI’s page:

    ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is an essential role of journalism in society?

    2. What did both the ChatGPT app and the human correspondent seem to agree on in this article?

    3. What, if anything, worries you about artifiical intelligence and how you get your information?

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