NPR launches Disinformation Reporting team

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2022/07/15/1111727112/npr-launches-disinformation-reporting-team

Shannon Bond needs little introduction. Shannon is currently a tech correspondent based in the Bay Area. That beat has already given her extensive experience and sourcing in the disinformation world. Shannon joined NPR in 2019 from the Financial Times and quickly became known as an unflappable and generous colleague who's stayed on top of breaking news about Meta, Twitter and other tech platforms while also finding time to report out original stories, like the existence of computer-generated fake profiles on LinkedIn. Shannon's first day on the disinformation beat will be August 1st, though she'll continue to help the Business Desk with breaking technology news while fellow tech reporter Bobby Allyn is on a fellowship in Germany.

Lisa Hagen joins NPR from member station WABE in Atlanta. Her first day is July 18th. Working with NPR's investigations team, Lisa reported and co-hosted the No Compromise podcast about the most radical wing of the gun rights movement. That serieswon the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting. Her reporting illuminates and helps humanize the unfamiliar, which should come in useful on the disinformation beat. She's fascinated by how we arrive at our beliefs and navigate who to trust in these strange times. In Georgia, Lisa covered criminal and social justice in addition to guns for WABE. Before that she worked as a stringer for the New York Post. While Lisa is originally from Hawaii, she would like everyone to know that she does not surf.

Huo Jingnan has been with NPR since 2018, most recently as an associate producer with the investigations team. In Jingnan's new role as a data-savvy reporter focusing on disinformation, she'll work on both her own projects and with reporters on the team and around the newsroom to flesh out patterns and money trails related to the spread of false information. During her time with the investigations team, Jingnan quantified the extent of toxic silica exposure the federal government knew that coal miners had undergone and looked for lessons learned from courts that ran remote jury trials during the pandemic. Jingnan will start on the disinformation beat later this month and she'll continue to be based in the Washington, DC area.

Brett Neely has worked at the intersection of political coverage and collaborative journalism since he arrived at NPR in 2015, including leading our coverage of voting rights and election security through the 2016 and 2020 elections. When we launched the pop-up disinformation team last year, Brett took on the beat and has worked with reporters from the Washington, Science, Business and National desks as well as member stations to deepen our coverage. As the disinformation team's Supervising Editor, he'll continue to lead that coverage and work with partners across the newsroom and public radio network. Brett remains based in Colorado, where he moved after the 2020 election.

Nancy and Terry

*the end*


All the proof that this is needed is contained in the responses to this rather innocuous announcement.

[NewHendoLib]

1. will they report on themselves when they do their typical "both sides do it" bullshit?

[musette_sf]

2. +1

[Nevilledog]

3. That's not disinformation, that's bad reporting.

[uponit7771]

6. If that thought stream among themselves and keep reporting it its disinformation no? tia

[Nevilledog]

7. I'd call that misinformation.

Reporting that one side is insane, but not calling it insane. That's misinformation.

Reporting that the insanity is the truth is disinformation.

[Warpy]

21. Oh, both sides do it, the difference is in orders of magnitude

If they start employing honest fact checkers to gag the most egregious liars, I might be able to start listening to them again.

I stopped one morning when I had to get up via clock radio. It was during Dubya's Scam-a-palooza to get Social Security into the stock market and it was one oily sleazebag after another, ending with the thoroughly greased up Ken Mehlman (remember him?) and not only did it get me up fast, it damned near got the clock radio through a window.

I've kept it tuned to the classical music station here ever since.

And no, coming out as gay didn't provide Mehlman with any deodorant, at all.

[irisblue]

4. Bout damn time

[gulliver]

5. Ok, who let that name happen?

Are they really going to call it the "Disinformation Reporting Team?" I love and donate to NPR, but let's change the name of this. I'm skeptical about it as an idea, but the name is out of The Onion.

[Hamlette]

11. my thoughts exactly. Especially after 2000 Mules

I read an article debunking 2000 Mules and it seems based on a statement from Biden that he had the largest and best voter fraud team ever.

Maybe ANTI disinformation team?

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. Are they stopping it or spreading it? Hard to tell sometimes. Nt

[Meadowoak]

9. They lie so much, it would be nearly impossible to keep up.

[peppertree]

10. You can bet NPR - and Public Broadcasting - will be on the chopping block if Repugs get back in

Repugs, of course, have been calling for this for years - except those calling for it were usually on the "fringes."

Not anymore. The inmates are very much in control of the GOPee asylum now.

[Pinback]

12. "On average, less than 1% of NPR's annual operating budget

comes in the form of grants from CPB and federal agencies and departments.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances

Won’t stop the Republicans from getting into a lather about “gubmint funding of liberal propaganda,” of course.

[The Jungle 1]

14. NPR has advertiser and can tell repukes to f off.

NPR is an financially independent news outlet and can report whatever they want.
If you have basic cable YOU fund fox. We must demand that cable operators grant us freedom from Fox News. I want to pick my entire channel line up.
News Corporation has paid an effective tax rate of only around 6%. By comparison, Disney, one of the world's other media empires, paid 31%. It is called corporate welfare! Fox is the one getting government handouts.

[The Jungle 1]

13. NPR does great work.

I support their work.

[jaxexpat]

15. Me too. I hope this is a successful project for them.

That would make it a success for all of us. I do, however, expect some awkward moments when they turn the spotlight of some of their own luminaries. But THAT'S entertainment.

[Ponietz]

16. NPR fabricated doubt about Hillary Clinton and normalized Pisswig

It’s no friend of mine.

[The Jungle 1]

22. Not being a smart ass but what is Pisswig

I am guessing pizzagate.
So I will say this in politics every politician and news source has issues I do not like. I try to look at the whole package.
As NPR's Linda Wertheimer put it, even the most cursory examination of "#Pizzagate" reveals stories that are "completely and not very skillfully made up."

[Ponietz]

24. 'Pisswig' refers to the former guy

[totodeinhere]

17. I used to support and listen to NPR. But not any more.

They are a public network partially funded by the public. So why don't they represent all of the pubic. The right wing always gets preferential coverage at NPR and I just can't listen to the garbage anymore.

[The Jungle 1]

23. NPR is not a public network.

Those days are over. They still take donations but advertisers pay the bills.
Fox news gets more government public money. News corp pays an effective tax rate of 6%. What do you pay.
If you have basic cable YOU pay for Fox news.

[hadEnuf]

18. It's about damn time somebody did something.

Good on NPR. Let's hope some other news stations find their cojones and start exposing the pure right-wing propaganda that's being put out there 24/7.

[Blue Owl]

19. They are gonna be busy... real busy...

[DFW]

20. I hope it lasts longer than the midterms or Inauguration Day 2025

About 30 years ago, a guy in Düsseldorf opened an office that went after and publicized unfair/illegal acts and/or decisions by all-powerful bureaucrats against private citizens. The guy was extremely popular with the locals. This was at a time when the Social Democrats--the ultimate bureaucrats in Germany--were in power. They soon forced him to shut down, justifying their action by saying that all bureaucracies already had existing channels for registering complaints.

Those "existing channels" ran, DUH, right through the very bureaucrats that were the source of complaints, and the reason for the guy opening his office, in the first place.

Any NPR overseen by Republicans will pull funding for any such action by NPR, saying that the Republican government had its own channels for verifying any and all lies they will feed to the public.

When the Foxes guard the henhouse, there is no one left to stop them from replacing the sign saying, "Henhouse," with a sign saying, "Safeway."