News & Updates

In a BBC article by Jane Wakefield, Sally Lehrman discusses the growing concern about fake news on Facebook and Twitter, and how the Trust Project is working to come up with tools to improve trust in the mainstream media. “We don’t know enough yet to know how [fake news] affected the election but we do know that fake news travels rapidly and it can change the conversation, not just by misinforming people but by focusing attention on something that may not be the issue,” Lehrman said. “I would be concerned if we relied on Google, Facebook and Twitter to solve the problem …

Read moreTackling the Fake News Problem

Sally Lehrman, director of Journalism Ethics, has been quoted in multiple publications, such as The Guardian and  The Gospel Herald regarding her leadership of The Trust Project, an organization that seeks to restore trust in the media by establishing indicators of accuracy and truthfulness in news sources. The Trust Project was also referenced in a  Forbes article on fake news. “In today’s burgeoning and chaotic news ecosystem, it is difficult to parse truth from falsehood, wisdom from spin… We have seen a decline in trust in the media over a period of decades and the polarization across what types of media are trusted,” Lehrman said. ( ©  Milan …

Read moreCracking Down on Fake News

In a Sacramento Bee article, the newspaper’s executive eitor and senior vice president, Joyce Terhaar, discusses how the Trust Project is working to turn the news media into a more trustworthy industry. “The Trust Project, for instance, is using expertise from universities, media and technology companies to develop an online indicator intended to signal whether a news operation is trustworthy. If, like me, you are frustrated when supposed news sites don’t disclose who owns them or creates the stories, you might welcome an indicator.” (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)