Facebook to start journalism project
FACEBOOK announced on Wednesday that it’s launching its own journalism project, continuing its efforts to change the way media organizations work with the social network. The move could be seen as an extension of its vow earlier this year to crack down on fake news on the site.
The Facebook Journalism Project is made up of several smaller projects – each of which Facebook is working on with a variety of media partners on different projects, including The Washington Post, Fox News, Germany’s BILD and Spain’s El Pais. In a company blog post provided to The Post ahead of time, Facebook said it will be “collaborating with news organizations to develop products, learning from journalists about ways we can be a better partner, and working with publishers and educators on how we can equip people with the knowledge they need to be informed readers in the digital age”.
Facebook outlined 10 key points that it hopes to address with the project. They include working with news organizations on new storytelling formats and ways to present stories – which, in turn, will show up in users’ news feeds. The company will host hackathons dedicated to news problems. It will work with journalists to teach them how to use Facebook for reporting, including how to verify eyewitness accounts of breaking news. Facebook is also putting out a call for local news outlets to be more involved on the social network, k, to give its users more information ation about the world immediately diately around them.
The social media network will also undertake ertake some projects to help elp improve the e media literacy y of its users – a key suggestion n t h a t media a scholarsofferedd the site as it conntinues to grappleple with the prob problem of misinformation.
Facebook’s struggle with defining its place in the media world has played out publicly over the past several months, coming to a head just after the election when some raised questions about whether fake news articles passed aroun around on the site could have influen influenced it. Facebook chief executiveexe Mark Zuckerberg dis dismissed that pos possibility as “e x t r e m e l y un unlikely” in the day days after the el ectie on. But cont continued question tions about Facebook and other tech f firms’ responsibility to vet news or curtail misinformationmisinforma eventually led to Facebook announcing it would begin submitting stories reported as false to thirdparty fact-checking sites, and labelling stories that were found to be “disputed” for all its users.
The new project has the same philosophy as Facebook’s announcement late last year that it felt it had a responsibility to reduce fake news on its site, said Justin Osofsky, Facebook’s vice president of global operations and media partnerships. “This is, in some ways a continuation of those efforts,” he said. “But it’s bringing it together in a way that gives us more playback from publishers and journalists.”
What, exactly, any of this will look like is yet to be determined. Wednesday’s announcement is meant to spark discussions, Osofsky said, and lead to new partnerships. “This i s us announcing a road map,” he said. “We can’t have all the answers.”