Election reporting during multiple crises & misinformation on Facebook grows popular
It's close to election day in the U.S. and Myanmar. As the two countries gear up for polling in early November, Meedan is hosting an event on election reporting during multiple crises. At this event on Friday, October 16, journalists and fact-checkers from India, Zimbabwe, Taiwan and the Philippines share insights and experiences of covering recent elections amid massive social and political change. Sign up for this event if you're interested in learning from media people covering the elections while reporting on many major rapidly evolving stories.
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Election reporting during multiple crises: Insights from India, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and the Philippines
Join our online event on Friday, October 16
How can journalists in the U.S. and other places cover elections and combat viral election misinformation in a way that innovates, but does not strain newsroom coverage timelines and staffing resources? How can journalists cover rapidly evolving stories amid multiple converging reporting challenges? Journalists and fact-checkers from India, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and the Philippines have all recently covered elections amid massive social and political change. This event is an effort to learn from them.
Register here to join Meedan's event with our panelists:
Ellen T. Tordesillas, Trustee & writer at VERA Files, Philippines
Jency Jacob, Managing Editor, BOOM, India
Summer Chen, Chief Editor, Taiwan FactCheck Center, Taiwan
Sean Ndlovu, Founder and Manager, CITE, Zimbabwe
Your COVID-19 questions
Journalist and medical doctor, Dr. Seema Yasmin shares weekly highlights from Meedan's public health journalism tool, learnaboutcovid19.org.
What does it mean for Covid-19 to impact the brain?
Dr. Seema says: "Some viruses can directly damage the brain by infecting brain cells or damaging the brain’s blood vessels. Other viruses affect the brain indirectly, via the immune system’s reaction to infection, which can leach toxic inflammatory chemicals into the brain and surrounding spaces. A study of 509 Covid-19 hospital patients found that more than 80% suffered some neurologic symptoms during their acute illness; these ranged from headaches and confusion to stroke and seizures. These patients required longer hospital stays and often struggled with daily activities when they were discharged home. But newer data is emerging about Covid-19 survivors who seem to have gotten past the worst part of the disease only to suffer what could be longer-term brain problems. Thousands who recently had the disease are describing symptoms collectively described as “Covid brain fog.” These include confusion, memory problems, dizziness, and trouble thinking, among others. Experts in neuro-infectious disease have seen this before with Ebola survivors, HIV/AIDS patients, and other patients of viral illness. Covid-19 is a new disease but these early reports raise flags about the long-term recovery of survivors and the possible impacts of the virus on the brain." (Read more on what our experts say here)
What do we know about monoclonal antibodies as part of a treatment or vaccine for COVID-19?
Dr. Seema says: "Antibody treatments have been in the news since the U.S. president was treated with an experimental, not-yet-approved, antibody cocktail. Antibodies are proteins made by the immune system to fight infection. In the case of the president’s experimental treatment, it consisted of a mixture of lab-made antibodies, designed to decrease the amount of virus in the body. The Food and Drug Administration is currently reviewing data about the experimental medicine to decide if an emergency use authorization should be granted. (The last time the FDA issued an EUA for convalescent plasma (taken from Covid-19 survivors) in August, it was widely criticized for granting authorization on weak and early data.) So far, no lab-made antibody treatments have been authorized or approved for use with Covid-patients." (Read more on what our experts say here)
Top stories
On Facebook, Misinformation Is More Popular Now Than in 2016 (The New York Times)
People are engaging more on Facebook today with news outlets that routinely publish misinformation than they did before the 2016 election, according to new research from the German Marshall Fund Digital, the digital arm of the public policy think tank.
In total, Facebook likes, comments and shares of articles from news outlets that regularly publish falsehoods and misleading content roughly tripled from the third quarter of 2016 to the third quarter of 2020, the group found.
About two thirds of those likes and comments were of articles published by 10 outlets, which the researchers categorized as “false content producers” or “manipulators.” Those news outlets included Palmer Report and The Federalist, according to the research.
“We have these sites that masquerade as news outlets online. They’re allowed to. It’s infecting our discourse and it’s affecting the long-term health of the democracy.”— Karen Kornbluh, director of GMF Digital
What’s new at Meedan
Hacktoberfest X Meedan
Join our developer community, contribute to open source with Check and earn cool swags! As part of Hacktoberfest, here at Meedan we’d like to expand our developer community and we are welcoming and inviting everyone to contribute to any of the services that support the Check platform.
1st - 31st October 2020