By Hannah Chia
“If we are to earn trust, we need to accept we’re no longer the gatekeepers of information – just another bunch of people with a phone and average curiosity, search skills, and interest in getting to the bottom of what happened,” Alex Murray, Verification Lead and Trainer for BBC Verify, told participants at WAN-IFRA’s Asian Media Leaders Summit in Singapore recently.
Murray outlined how BBC Verify, the organisation’s newest initiative, is employing transparency as a core strategy to build trust in a media landscape saturated with disinformation.
Launched in May 2023, BBC Verify draws on the BBC’s extensive heritage in investigative journalism and open-source intelligence, a legacy dating back to 1939.
‘Showing audiences not just what we know, but how we know it’
With more than 60 investigative journalists, analysts, fact-checkers, data specialists, graphic designers, and experts in disinformation, verification, and open-source techniques, the unit employs a range of tools and techniques. Theses include reverse image search, AI image detection, map-assisted geolocation, and even flight tracking to ensure the accuracy of its reporting.
“Transparency for us is broken down into some basic tenets, showing audiences not just what we know, but how we know it,” Murray said.
He stressed the importance of explicitly stating where information was found, what tools were used, and, importantly, being “open about our limits.”
Prioritising transparency for increasing audience trust
This commitment to transparency is evident in the team’s approach to complex investigations, such as the case of the missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv in July 2024.
Confronted with conflicting narratives from Russia and Ukraine about the origin of the missile, BBC Verify turned to seven weapons experts.
The experts, shown verified video footage of the missile moments before impact, unanimously concluded that the missile was not a surface-to-air defence missile, as Russia claimed. Instead, the missile’s characteristics pointed to a Russian cruise missile.
Further, the team, working with graphic designers, procured a model of a Russian KH-101 cruise missile and overlaid it on a freeze frame from the video. While no expert could confidently say what the specific missile type was, the visual evidence lent credence to Ukraine’s claims.
This commitment to transparency includes acknowledging what BBC Verify does not know.
Murray commended BBC Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg for admitting his confusion amidst the Wagner Group’s uprising in June 2023. He said the willingness to acknowledge uncertainty is a crucial aspect of building trust with audiences.
“We have to be honest with our audiences, even when it hurts our journalistic egos to say, ‘I don’t know.’”
In response to the widespread use of AI for image generation, BBC Verify’s answer is to equip audiences with the skills and knowledge needed to discern disinformation.
“The key message is to be useful to your audiences,” Murray said.
Although this approach has resulted in the rejection of many stories, Murray reemphasised BBC Verify’s core: To put people at the centre of the stories.
AFP stays committed to objective reporting
Likewise, Agence France-Presse (AFP)’s Asia Pacific Regional Director, Michael Mainville, also highlighted the key issues behind their efforts to build audience trust.
“We all know why journalism matters. An informed public is essential to making our societies work, to helping people make decisions about who they’re going to vote for, where they’re going to live, and what they’re going to buy,” Mainville told Asia Media Leaders Summit participants.
“The first, and I think the biggest challenge, is that many people simply no longer trust us,” Mainville said.
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 found that just 40 percent of respondents across 47 countries said they trust most news. This number is down from 51 percent 20 years ago.
News avoidance has been on the rise for years, and now nearly 40 percent of people in the Reuters Institute survey say they regularly avoid and turn off the news.
Faced with all of these challenges, AFP’s answer has been to double down on their fundamental mission – to provide complete and objective reporting of the facts everywhere in the world they can.
AFP’s four pillars: A commitment to trust and truth
AFP focuses on four pillars that “guide all our journalism”: on-the-ground reporting, visual storytelling, human storytelling and digital verification, Mainville said.
“The first pillar, on-the-ground reporting, it’s central to all the others. It’s the key principle that guides every decision that we make and how we cover the news every day and where we’re putting our resources long term,” Mainville said.
AFP’s core belief is that to cover the story properly, one needs to be there. This is why AFP relies on the largest networks of journalists globally, consisting of 1,700 journalists in 150 countries.
“The question we ask ourselves is not ‘Do we go?’ It’s ‘How do we go?’,” Mainville said.
The large network enables quick, accurate responses from journalists who know the ground.
They support AFP’s second and third pillars, visual and human storytelling. This visual approach helps to shed light on “colourful, impactful” stories.
“Sixty-five percent of our coverage is original content produced by AFP journalists. Sixty-five percent of what we do is journalists on the ground with a camera,” he said.
Mainville highlighted the need to prioritise human voices over institutional ones.
“Our aim is [that] in every coverage…to give a voice to the people who are affected by the news, to report on the impact of conflicts, politics, natural disasters and the economy are having on the daily lives.” This focus on human stories ensures that audiences can relate to the news and see themselves reflected in it.
The last pillar, Digital Verification, is especially important in an era of rampant disinformation. AFP has taken a proactive stance against disinformation.
“The entire information ecosystem that we’re working under is under attack, undermining the credibility of legitimate news organisations and media,” Mainville said.
‘AI will never be able to replace a reporter’
In the newsroom, AFP intentionally engages journalists to help fight disinformation. AFP also has a dedicated team of fact-checkers publishing 600 fact-checks a month in 26 languages. Mainville stressed the importance of multilingual fact-checking.
“There is no point in putting out fact checks in just English, French or Spanish if disinformation is spreading in the Philippines and Indonesia,” he said.
While acknowledging the disruptive potential of AI, Mainville said he believes it will not replace human journalists.
“AI will never be able to replace a reporter standing on a post, filming an approaching typhoon, or interview[ing] families forced from their homes by armed conflict,” he said.
AFP’s commitment to on-the-ground reporting remains steadfast, even as it explores ways to leverage AI for streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency.
Ultimately, for AFP, the path to producing impactful journalism lies in adhering to its four pillars, embracing innovation, and, crucially, rebuilding trust with audiences.
“We need to convince them that what we’re doing is true,” he said.
WAN-IFRA Senior Editor Brian Veseling contributed to this post.
About the author: Hannah Chia is a student at Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.
The post How BBC Verify and AFP convey transparency to build audience trust appeared first on WAN-IFRA.