Newsrooms are generally aware of the risks of misinformation and information coming from social media platforms and regularly discuss these problems. Even though there are no specially trained experts in place, leading news media maintain professional journalistic values such as fact-checking and getting information on news stories from various sources. However, voluminous and continuous information flows, time pressure, and limited editorial resources, particularly in regional media, make efficient checking of doubtful information difficult. Our interviews show that some newsrooms are pressing for more advanced artificial intelligence initiatives to tackle this problem.
While daily fact-checking procedures are not always working well, leading news media have been successful with single fact-checking initiatives. For example, during the latest election campaign, political statements and arguments were thoroughly scrutinised.
