Australian media professionals see a specific and crucial role for journalists in combating misinformation: “Our whole business is built on fighting misinformation”, described an online editor. “There is training on how to detect misinformation. But logic and experience provide more effective screens. Internal fact checkers are too expensive for most media organisations. This must be done by the journalist”, illustrated a senior columnist.
Misinformation has long been associated with the digital platforms (Clark, 2009), but its prevalence and effect has been growing (Flintham et al., 2018). While misinformation online had the spotlight during the 2016 US election campaign (Guess et.al, 2018), the recent pandemic has revealed the extent to which this misinformation presents a recognisable danger to the public (Nyilasy, 2020). Calls are growing for a strategy and campaign to combat it, but progress has been elusive (Wenzel, 2019).
