Illustration by Max Fleishman

Fake fact-checkers, paywalls, philanthropy and impunity

Our personal weekly selection about journalism and innovation. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

edited by Marco Nurra

• These fake ‘fact-checkers’ are peddling lies about genocide and censorship in Turkey. Sarphan Uzunoğlu, a media studies lecturer at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, says Turkey established a “post-truth regime” before it became the word of the year in 2016. The regime has provided unique contributions to the field, he adds, such as propagandists’ use of the “fact-checking” title for political purposes.

• Create-your-own-fake-news sites are booming. There are 30 websites in 6 languages that enable anyone to create & spread their own fake news story.
• Want to stop a spreading fake news story? Choose one of these four points of attack to fight back:

• Repetition boosts lies — but could help fact-checkers, too. This phenomenon is known as the “familiarity effect” or “fluency heuristic” and has been documented by a relatively ample body of research. A new study concluded that more detailed explanations help people remember corrections longer and that individuals over 65 are comparatively worse at holding on to corrective information (i.e. likelier to misremember a myth as a fact).
• A new report from Pew Research Center shows that newspaper circulation and revenue fall for industry overall. Advertising revenue across the industry declined even more sharply than in recent years: a 10% decline, which outpaces the 8% decline in 2015.

Pew Research Center

• Can philanthropy help rebuild trust in news? “Trust is forged through relationships, and for many, the long-term work of rebuilding trust in journalism is rooted in fundamentally changing the relationship between the public and the press. Making journalism more responsive to and reflective of its community demands culture change in newsrooms and an emphasis on diversity and inclusion. If we want communities to trust journalism, they have to see themselves and their lived experiences reflected in the reporting. Too often that is still not the case, and foundations can play a vital role in sustaining the ongoing work to renegotiate these relationships.”
• The Intercept also turns to reader memberships. Sure, Omidyar has committed millions to guarantee the venture’s stability. But it’s still on a budget, however generous that budget, and “the more money we have, the more we can do,” Glenn Greenwald, a cofounding editor of The Intercept, told to Nieman Lab.
• Newspaper paywalls are entering a new phase. In the first generation, publishers were just trying to test the concept that consumers would pay up. The Times, for example, designed its paywall to be comparatively porous at first in an effort to collect as much data as possible. With that accomplished, many are now focused on optimizing and building on that model.
• David Fahrenthold discusses his whirlwind ride covering Trump. During the course of his career as a real estate developer and TV celebrity, Trump said he’d given “tens of millions” of dollars to charity. So, Fahrenthold wanted to know: Where was it? That simple question ultimately became the driving force for a months-long investigation that saw The Washington Post reporter inadvertently become an assignment editor for a legion of online sleuths who helped him untangle a complicated web of charitable giving.
• The New York Times is eliminating the position of public editor; here’s Liz Spayd on the decision to eliminate her position. At the same time, the newspaper is establishing a Reader Center, “to capitalize on our readers’s knowledge and experience”, led by Hanna Ingber.
• “Murder is the ultimate form of censorship”, according to the Committee to Protect Journalist. Hundreds of journalists have been murdered, but in 9 out of 10 cases their killers go free.

• “I’m a reporter in Mexico. My life is in danger. But the United States wouldn’t give me asylum. […] After all the agony I experienced, I hope that when other journalists feel threatened as a result of their work and decide to seek asylum, they will not have to fear being detained for several months and being separated from their families only to see their case denied, and that all journalists in danger will receive refuge. My life is in danger again now that I’m back in Mexico. But my hope for other journalists seeking refuge in the United States will continue to grow.”
• How Venezuela’s independent digital news outlets are covering the turmoil in their country. Journalist Luz Mely Reyes: “We want to spark information, like the firefly does, to illuminate an entire country.”
• One of the most dreaded assignments in journalism has always been the “death knock”: the job of knocking on the door of someone affected by tragedy. Now the nature of the death knock has changed. In web parlance, it has scaled. And the problem is: it doesn’t scale well.

International Journalism Festival is the biggest annual media event in Europe. It’s an open invitation to interact with the best of world journalism. All sessions are free entry for all attendees, all venues are situated in the stunning setting of the historic town centre of Perugia.