NEW YORK – As news outlets get ready for election night, they're not only focusing on what happens. They're keeping watch over what doesn't.
Several plans to combat misinformation are in place across newsrooms that will follow the climax of a hard-fought campaign on Nov. 5. The Associated Press and others will take special steps to explain what they do. The New York Times is assigning reporters to comb the Internet for the first sign of new conspiracies. An NPR reporter will look for mischief created by artificial intelligence. ABC News has tried “pre-bunks” to prepare its viewers.
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False stories that infected the political debate after Hurricane Helene this fall were a sobering reminder of how quickly things can spread.
“The biggest thing that I tend to worry about is the speed with which misinformation travels and the lack of control that a news organization — any news organization — has over that,” said Julie Pace, executive editor and senior vice president of The Associated Press.
“The only thing that we can do is make sure that we are filling the space with fact-based information that is as fast and as accurate as humanly possible, to try to ensure that as misinformation is traveling, fact-based reporting is as well,” Pace said.
The AP's special role on election night includes tabulating the results of hundreds of elections across the country and making calls on winners and losers that takes into account raw data, polling and trends in past races. Throughout the campaign, the outlet has written stories that show how this is done and, on election night, will specifically detail why it made calls for individual states in the presidential contest.
Other organizations are making similar promises, including making clear to people when it's too soon for conclusions to be drawn. “My mantra on election night is radical transparency,” said Rick Klein, ABC News Washington bureau chief.
They're making sure news consumers are prepared
The Times will bring back to its website the single most anxiety-producing invention for election night coverage in some time — the Needle, which changes through the evening to measure the probability of victory for the presidential candidates. This time, it will be accompanied by more granular material that explains those movements, said Matthew Ericson, an assistant managing editor.
The newspaper is also assigning reporters on election night to scour the Internet for conspiracy theories, with the goal of debunking false stories as quickly as possible.
Tracking disinformation efforts has been ongoing during the campaign, like organizations reporting on fake abuse allegations against Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz that intelligence officials suspect originate with Russia. Falsehoods abounded following Helene in September, involving weather control and the withholding of money to areas dominated by Republicans.
NBC News has a Vote Watch team that will work Election Day to monitor misinformation efforts and has assigned 30 reporters to be “county captains” to keep watch in areas where the election is expected to be particularly tight. PBS is working with the PolitiFact fact-check team on election night.
While watching, the journalists will have to weigh whether a false theory is getting enough attention that it is worth debunking, or whether bringing it up simply amplifies it. That's the most common concern that Tim Richardson, journalism and misinformation program director at PEN America, gets when he trains reporters on how to deal with false stories.
“If it's something you are only seeing on a fringe platform, let it rest,” Richardson said. “But if it's something that rises to the level where a large section of the public is noticing it and it's getting traction, then you should step in and debunk it.”
They're looking for vulnerable points after the vote
Periods of uncertainty in tight elections are vulnerable points. “My fear is bad actors coming in to fill the void,” Richardson said.
In 2020, news organizations did not declare Joe Biden the winner until the Saturday after Election Day. Klein said it's important for journalists to let people know that such delays while counting votes don't necessarily mean something nefarious is going on. It can just take time to get it right.
But that time four years ago is when former President Donald Trump's false narrative that he'd been cheated took root. His speech in the wee hours of election night alleging fraud and claiming that he won states where he hadn't provided a severe test for TV networks that were showing his remarks live. If something similar happens this year, either in public speeches or during interviews, networks will have to weigh cutting away or be ready immediately with fact-checks.
ABC News has been running a “Protecting Your Vote” series this fall which spotlights false stories that are already being spread that may be expected to increase in intensity near or on election day, among them the “myth” that there will be a flood of noncitizen voters. Similarly, both Scott Pelley on CBS' “60 Minutes” and Laura Barron-Lopez on PBS' “NewsHour” have done extensive stories looking into how false election fraud stories spread in Arizona.
“For us, it doesn't start or stop with Election Day,” Klein said.
A disinformation team at NPR has been looking at the issue from several angles, like the role of artificial intelligence and the influence of other countries, and has spent considerable time working on debunking the theory that there will be a flood of noncitizen voting, said Eric Marrapodi, vice president for news programming. Although NPR is providing live coverage of election night from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Eastern, the radio network traditionally gets more listeners the morning after, he said.
“We've got to make sure we just verify the hell out of everything,” Marrapodi said.
They're ramping up for a new responsibility
The news outlets feel the weight of responsibility, particularly since they've been dragged down given how misinformation has metastasized.
“People aren't sure what to believe anymore because our information ecosystem has become so polluted in many ways,” said Richardson, a former Washington Post reporter.
“It's one of the most critical services we do as a news organization,” said Carrie Budoff Brown, NBC News' senior vice president for politics. “Getting things right is a top priority. It's one of the biggest nights for people who follow us for factual information. We have to deliver on that. We cannot falter.”
Election night coverage has changed considerable from the time where getting the count, and the analysis, right was the main concern. Richardson hopes the news outlets are prepared for what is to come.
“I feel like we're kind of in uncharted territory and I don't know what will emerge,” he said. “Hopefully journalists are ready. I think they are.”
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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.