Katie Sanders, the managing editor of PolitiFact, a fact-checking organization, spoke about misinformation in media at the Oppenheimer symposium last Monday, March 27. Many students and community members gathered to listen to her presentation.
Sanders spoke about misinformation and how PolitiFact debunks claims made by politicians, elected officials, political parties, interest groups, talk show hosts and statements made on social media.
PolitiFact journalists get their facts from open sources and public documents to fact-check these entities. Sanders also discussed the dangers of misinformation in the media, referencing the Jan. 6th insurrection, the 2021 Buffalo shooting and conspiracy theories surrounding the existence of the COVID-19 virus and the effectiveness of the vaccine.
Sanders also commented on the dangers of AI and other deepfake technology and how they pose to aid in the spread of misinformation.
“I do predict that we are closer to a big misinformation event thanks to the advancements we are seeing in AI technologies,” Sanders said. “We are all hearing about advanced tools like chat GTP and these smart responses can speed up the process of producing misinformation by mimicking the patterns of people who produce misinformation.”
With the threat of misinformation only growing, Sanders advises that everyone should view information online with a certain level of cynicism until that information is verified. Sanders provided two questions people can ask themselves when confronted with suspicious information. The first being: Who is making the claim? The second: What do other sources say? These questions can lead someone to the truth behind suspicious information.
PolitiFact has been covering presidential campaigns heavily since 2016 and covered the 2020 election. They review the statements and claims made by candidates and voters during these times to quicky squash any conspiracy theories. Statements meant to keep people from voting, and statements made to make candidates look foolish are fact-checked by PolitiFact. In order to combat untruthful statements from presidential candidates, and to keep voters educated in the truth, they are planning on covering the 2024 election extensively.
Sanders then ended her presentation with a message for future journalists.
“You may not get much time or that much space, but what you can do to promote truth is to challenge assertions that are not based on fact by doing contextual fact checks that make your reporting more authoritative when it’s appropriate,” Sanders said.
Ben Dewitt can be reached at [email protected]