Free Press

Under news standards developed in the last century to counter manipulation and low-quality reporting, the media have broadly made an effort to adhere to hallmarks of good reporting.

However, as we have witnessed the resurgence of white-supremacist values online and in our communities, news coverage has routinely failed to expose these dangers — too often, mainstream-media reporting has even normalized this extremism.

We urge media executives to pledge to adopt the following best practices to safeguard information integrity during moments of crisis, violence and threats to U.S. democracy.

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1. Identify and name authoritarian and autocratic rhetoric. Report on extreme values, speech and behaviors of political figures, candidates, political parties and other influencers directly and without equivocation.
2. Cross-check, fact-check, double-check. Misinformation and false claims can spread rapidly during heightened crisis periods, undermining trust in the democratic process. Newsrooms must verify information from reliable sources and clearly call a lie a lie, particularly when uttered by influential figures and parties.
3. Report rigorously on threats to the rule of law and institutions. If a political candidate, party or other influential platform rejects the rule of law, media professionals must take such threats seriously as attacks on a functional democracy.
4. Think of the impact on audiences when packaging stories. Editors and journalists must practice caution in how they select headlines, images and cited sources. Readers may not even read beyond the first sentence.
5. Always give more context for audiences. Assume audiences know only some history or background on a given subject. Explain “how we got here” to help audiences and mitigate assumptions.
6. Provide civic information. Bad actors spread misinformation to hinder certain classes of people from exercising their rights. Only 28 percent of Americans feel “very informed” about local elections. News outlets have a responsibility to give communities the information they need to participate fully in our democracy.