We have all long operated we covered the white house together, weve done that. We know how all president s and their Communications Team try to throw information out there because they want us, they want us to echo that. They want to put that out there. In an amendment such as this that so challenge with the subject of the continued influence the fact, do you change the way you put that information out there . How do you address that reality . You are muted, mara, sorry. This is a really, really, really tough problem. Because were so tribal, because of the tribalizing effects of social media, you know, whatever we do to discuss a piece of misinformation or disinformation, we putting that piece of this information out there and by definition i guess were giving it more life for airtime. Npr is a mainstream News Organization. We try to surround this piece of misinformation or disinformation with as much context and Fact Checking as we can, but what we found, maybe we can talk about this, but there are plenty of trump voters who say i know hes a liar, i dont care, im still for it. In other words, thats i guess a different question. They think they know what reality is but they dont care. But the ability of political actors to create an alternative set of reality, alternative realities come dont forget we start of the Trump Administration with the famous quote alternative facts. Without there was only one set of facts and without a democracy depend on a shoe set the facts, and then you work your way to opposite sometimes vehemently opposite. We are not there now. What i think we could do in the Mainstream Media is to provide context to explain whats happening, to explain why a person is purveying a piece of information or an organization is doing that. Thats all we can do. I think the notion we can somehow not disseminate it as if we can control it, the internet is uncontrollable. Social media is uncontrollable. This is really hard and and i k the thing that makes this even harder at a know it goes without saying that in 2016 most of the disinformation or misinformation was coming from the russians, or outside of america. Sometimes in broken english. But now its generated in this country by the president of the United States office, and also a political activism. There was a piece on axios about all of these fake local news outlets that say and homepage that we provide you with unbiased fact check information, and they are all fronts for republican pr groups. This is what im saying. This is really, really hard. I dont have a quick answer for you except to just slog along and you are factbased analytical thing. I will say, mara, [inaudible] conversation with the Network President , ill be writing something about this, but this person action suggested it could be a scenario through which this News Organization would not report what the president said or would so drop it down into the story to diminish it, if, for example, he claimed on election day or Election Night that President Trump said he was winning when the evidence suggested otherwise. So when you do a lot of with mail in ballots have not yet been counted. And the magic as reported deliberately ignoring no. That example, but that example isnt just disinformation or misinformation. Thats the president of the United States making a political act that its usually consequential, that would be pushed back against by all sorts of actors, including the secretaries of states, all over the country who havent finished counting the ballots. Thats a little different. I cannot imagine it on Election Night now, let me just be clear. The choice isnt we are going to the president declaring victory, or we are not. Those are not the two choices to kind of try to ignore that is just declared victory or have them declare victory as if its legitimate. We are going to put that in a humongous truth sandwich. The president of the United States is trying to delegitimize the election. He wants once again to stop evn though there are still millions of votes out there. Here are the rules in the states the safety will keep counting blah, blah, blah. We have to cover that. I do think though that the president of the United States is being covered differently. Sometimes networks including fox are not carrying his rallies like. Thats a little bit different but yet there are times that News Organizations have decide to downplay what the president is doing because they dont consider it to be news value. Thats what you would know this better than anyone. Thats what gets to the newscast come something thats most important, the most newsy. The most sensational. [inaudible] not at npr. Fair enough. This conversation reminds me that misinformation is the societywide problem. The media cannot solve it on its own. Sometimes we get into this mindset come sometimes are audience puts this honest that its immediate act a different everything would be fine. That is not true. This disinformation and just kind of is also coming from the political process. Its coming from political leaders. Its coming from voters. Thats a very hard thing to deal with. The political leaders are extremely responsive to the public. I see that over and over. For example, why dont the republican senators hold President Trump accountable for thinks . They are afraid of the voters, afraid of them republican primary voters. When we talk about the problem of misinformation, we would have to look at all sectors of society and including the tech platforms. We havent talked about vignette. They have a significant role to play. Its like we all have to do our part if were going to get to a more factbased public discussion. Angie, in this context would ask you something even raised earlier, and that is fact checks can have effect if you see the fact checks. How are you at politifact working to get to new audiences, different audiences, people who might not typically and repeatedly consume fact checks . Yeah, its been like this whole new world being an independent nonprofit online News Organization because were pushing our content out through more channels than ever before. We email, we put them on twitter, we put them on facebook. We have partnerships with on the ground News Organizations. We also partner with facebook. This is been a Interesting Program where we fact check content on facebook and then eat our fact checked back into facebook. Facebook enabled this program. So than people who are not looking for Fact Checking content come across something that is false and the get a little note that says this content has been fact checked by thirdparty fact checkers, and those people are coming to us. We are also putting our fact check information under platforms like whatsapp. We have and a light on whats at right now program called back chat ever doing things on tiktok. Were trying to reach people wherever they are. One of the downsides is the audience is highly fragmented. You cant just do one thing and expect everybody is going to see it anymore. Its been a long time since thats the case but it is really not true enough. And you, let me ask have you had a conversation about a partnership with fox news . We have not although i would welcome that conversation if fox news wanted to come to the table. I mean, its a tough one because, like the fox news example is very challenging because they are an independent News Organization. They are doing their own work but i think its valuable document, ethan could speak to this and research that fox is often the source of misinformation. How do you deal with that . Thank you very much. He took the question right out of my mind, ethan to you. What about the role of fox and certainly breitbart and the other super partisan Media Outlets . And what about angies efforts to reach wider, brighter audience . What is a research indicate to the success of that . I think angies efforts are nothing short of heroic. I think everyone involved in fact, checking is doing everything they can to make for more factually informed base world. Which is such a challenge in part because of Media Outlets that are interested in the submitted misinformation. This reminds me of an earlier question about, observation about certain people will say look, i support donald trump. I dont care he is a lie. Im going to support them nonetheless. There are two studies i have done that might shed some light on this. The first study was conducted live during president ial debates in 2016. We fact check in real time trumps misstatements, and what we found was that people who are Trump Supporters would respond to fact check by becoming more accurate, okay . But at the same time there would be no downstream effects on their political Trump Supporters who see if i checked also become no less of what a tough because of that fact checker did you become more accurate. Ive always thought for my perspective fox news, donald trump, conservative media system should not fear fact checks at all pick it turns out peoples political views are pretty steep. Before interest in making a more informed public we can fact check people without being worried were dramatically shaping the ideological views of those who consume them. I will just jump in on that. I think sometimes people have a tendency to see this Fact Checking through a partisan lens come like its the conservatives who are wrong. If we had a jeb bush presidency theres no doubt it would have been very conservative but very factbased. He was a different sort of person, had much more of a research this stuff does not, actuality has no Political Party that is attached to and these trends we see now they can change. If we are going to be dedicated to actuality we also need to be dedicated to nonpartisanship. Can i ask the question . Go ahead. To be thin and ulcerative angie. Your sink check it might not make a difference in someones partisan leanings but fixed up the fact. Have you done any studies or any work on a Civic Education curriculum that would include Media Literacy . One of the things i have felt is the reason why people have such a hard time telling a difference between fact and falsehood is because they are not trained to consume news in a critical manner. If they could become we dont have Civics Education at all in the United States anymore, or hardly at all, but if that was part of a k12 curriculum that included Media Literacy and Civics Education, financial literacy, with that make a difference . If you have a more informed, sophisticated news consumer and jeff to train people to be that come with that make a difference . So i havent personally done this research yet. However, theres a great paper that came out earlier this year which looked at the effects of News Literacy campaigns. And did find indeed a positive the fact that literacy messages distributed make people more capable of distinguishing fake news from real news. I think theres a lot to be said for News Literacy campaigns and i hope the platforms get behind News Literacy and, of course, im with you 100 . I hope News Literacy and Civics Education comes to put a strong will and k12 education. Angie, thoughts . I seen an explosion in Media Literacy efforts over the past few years. Politifact is part of the institute which is home to media wise which started off doing media liturgy for teenagers and is desperately Media Literacy for seniors. I think that is absolutely needed. Thats a new frontier for research. You were asking about its prudent or not. Were still cant figure that out. The signs are positive but more study is needed. What you said about civics not been taught in school, we desperately need for civics taught in school. The educational trends of the past two years getting away from civics and government, we need to get back to that because people need it, click. Media literacy, theres been some Interesting Research on how people can consume information more laterally and for these other things. It actually quite a bit of work on the shoulders of the news consumer. You are going to need to take taken effort consuming this information in same way you taken effort when you buy a car. You need to do homework to know is going to last and the good and something you can depend on. Thats not what people have traditionally consumed information. Its not going to be universal. I just think its such a great point. I spent a lot of time in class talking about Different Levels of cognitive engagement that we have. We are going to have to be as americans more cognitively when encountering is. Its not just on media companies, not just on Fact Checking organizations. For those of us who are interested in a shared set of facts, its going to be at all of us. We are going to have to take information seriously, think more critically, put our thinking caps on when we encounter news. Because that probably will help us distinguish real news from fake news. With just a couple minutes left and i like to go around to each of you here and ask a dual question that i would love for you to put into succinct answer, and that is sort of what have you personally professionally learned from this extraordinary moment that we are in . And how would that fashion may be one clear recommendation that you might make to a News Organization, a credible News Organization, about how we can be more effective in reaching more people with Accurate Information in the midst of this infodemic as we sometimes call it . And you, do you to go first . Yeah. What ive learned is like how important it is to stay committed to our own principles in the media. Because, we are subject to a lot of it at all in the way to put it. The criticism from different sectors of the public is huge. At the end of the day i think when you look at ourselves and say did i come to i think i did a good job giving people the most complete factual error information i could ask if the answer is yes, we need to be satisfied with that. Were not going to please everybody. For news consumers i would say find a News Organization that you trust and that has a good, complete offering of information and engage with that News Organization. Supported with your subscription, supported with your attention. Because i really feel strongly that people just like i will just pick up the news i need, i will see it on my facebook feed i made i will catch it out of the corner of my eye on tv. Thats not good enough, not good enough. We need to be engaged news consumers. Theres an interesting thing you raise, very quickly, what is trust. His trust and News Organization that makes you so comfortable because it expresses your worldview or does it make if youre comfortably because explain what theyre doing, transparent about their sources, to convey their professionalism and that they make clear they challenge everybody, or anybody in a respectful but appropriate way. I think that notion of trust is also up for grabs. Mara, how about you . What is this moment in time taught you and what would you recommend to News Organization to do a job better like your own . Look, this moment in time has taught me how fragile our Democratic Institutions are, and the first and foremost of them, the press and truth itself, without which and without a shared set of facts you can have a functioning democracy. Thats the big 30,000foot view thats kind of scary. But i do think that News Organizations like my can continue trying as hard as he can to be exactly what you just described, transparent, challenging listeners, not making them feel comfortable, too many people go to the media for affirmation, not information. I also think Media Organizations, all Media Organizations should be involved in some kind of a bigger educational efforts like what we were talking about, Civics Education, k12. The use to be the New York Times and the classroom. Remember that . That used to be the School Additions of paper speed is local organizations could go go into the schools. A whole generation of kids, more than one, thinks you get your news from your facebook feed. Like somebody else should curate information you consume everyday. Thats horrifying to me. So i would say that my Media Organization could do better along with every other one at training news consumers. Yes, i do think its a. Youre asking a lot of people, maybe we are asking too much, and maybe if there was more i could information out there we wouldnt have to put the whole burden on the poor news consumer was also really busy and stressed in about 100 different ways, that the certificate the difference between th