In journalism not everything is worth: Investigation, Data and Fact-Checking

• EL MUNDO.Master in Investigative Journalism and Data
• Antonio Rubio.Director of the Master of Journalism of El Mundo / CEU and of the Master of Investigative Journalism, Data and Visualization of El Mundo / URJC

Two Nobel laureates, Albert Camus and García Márquez, considered journalism to be the best profession in the world. That was yesterday, today journalism has been affected by the disinformation pandemic , what some call fake-news . The question we can ask ourselves is how and in what way can we combat such disinformation, hoaxes and manipulations. The answer is easy, with more training from professionals (new techniques) and verification (fact-checking) of the information we publish "so they don't slip through", as Maldita.es maintains.

For this profession to continue being the best in the world, it is also necessary to recover other thoughts, practices and reflections of long-distance professionals. Ryszard Kapuscinki argued that to be a good reporter you had to apply the five senses of journalism: "Being, seeing, hearing, sharing and feeling . " Plàcid García-Planas, a benchmark in Spanish journalism, maintains that journalism is the essence of journalism and that journalists are like taxi drivers to readers: "We take them and show them." Andy Young, editor of The New Yorker , stated at the Huesca Digital Journalism Congress that "all the data that is published must be verified." There are two more elements that I try to apply to my students, both in the master's degrees that I direct and in the postgraduate courses where I teach: "Quoting and journalistic memory (context) ".

The combination of all these precepts is what journalism needs today. When "being, seeing, hearing, sharing and feeling" by Kapuscinski, we must add "verify, quote, document, accredit and edit" the Master of Investigative Journalism and Data. In other words, more training, more technology to make journalism achieve an "added value" that we can appreciate when we read, see and listen to the information and stories that the media offers us.

We also need more critical and demanding readers, radio listeners and viewers with what is offered. Well, in journalism not everything is worth. In the Master of Investigative Journalism, Data and Visualization of El Mundo and the Rey Juan Carlos University we work so that journalism continues to be the best profession in the world and for this, since its foundation in 2012, we have given training on each of the modules outlined and on two others that we consider fundamental for the journalists of the present and the future: verification (fact-checking) and transparency.

The importance of verification

Verification (fact-cheking) is carried out by the association Maldita.es directing Clara Jimenez and Julio Montes . Almost a third of its staff is made up of former Master's students. In the Final Master's Projects (TFM) prepared by postgraduate students and later published in the different media where they do their practices, the philosophy of Andy Young is applied, the editor of The New Yorker : "Everything that is published is verified " And the techniques of Maldita.es : "Journalism so that they do not strain you. Through verification techniques, data journalism, newspaper archive research, technological tools and education we create content that allows citizens to have greater security about what it is real and what is not. "

Ignacio Calle , coordinator of the editorial staff of Maldita.es and Maldito Dato -one of the projects in this medium- is in charge of the Master's fact-checking program . Calle was a student of the second edition of the postgraduate course and today he is one of the national and international references in this journalistic modality that fights disinformation. Calle recalls that "Maldita.es is currently a non-profit association that will soon become a foundation."

Since June 2017, Maldita.es has been part of the International Fact Checking Network and was the only Spanish medium of the High Level Group on 'fake news' and disinformation that the European Commission created in 2018.

It so happens that new technologies, those that give "added value" to information "and help the reader to know where and how the information reaches them, have not yet fully entered the academic degrees of most of the faculties of Journalism and Information Sciences of Spain.

Along with mastering the techniques of the journalist profession and new tools, it is very important to keep in mind a fact that every day we work less: the appointment. The reader, the consumer of information, must know how, in what way and from where the information that is provided comes from.

Readers don't have to be people of faith. Readers (I mean radio listeners, viewers and all kinds of consumers of journalistic information) have and should know what degree or percentage of reliability (truth) there is in what they offer and, above all, who offers it: what medium and how professional. It is not worth that of "they have said it on TV, on the radio ...". The reader is also responsible for the disinformation. They, on many occasions, are the propagators of that virus called disinformation or fake news. The mask also serves to avoid spreading things that are simply hoaxes, malicious viruses that kill good journalism.

Lack of citations reduces the work to the faith that the reader has about the medium or person who signs

In November 2016 I participated in the "III Latin American Congress of Defenders of Audiences" and there I developed and presented the paper "Information sources. Lack of transparency and defenselessness of the reader" as representative of the Federation of Journalists Associations of Spain (FAPE) . He asked for more clarity in appointments. Today I am going to allow myself to quote myself.

The paper started with "Journalism and truth" and then thought to the reader: "For some time I have observed, collected and studied different information that appears in the Spanish media where the concept" source "or" sources ", the basis of Information that the journalist / communicator transfers or provides for its compression and credibility, is reduced to a simple: "According to reliable sources ... according to consulted sources ... according to reliable sources ... according to highly credible sources ... according to various sources ... ".

And he continued: "That means that the only ones who know where the information comes from is the journalist himself and reduce all the work / credibility to the" faith "that the reader has about the medium or the person who signs that news."

And he ended up asking, demanding more data, more verification, more documentation to regain credibility with the reader: "Information, and above all information that is sensitive or that purports to be intentional (the one that is trying to change something), needs the largest number of data , documents or contributions that explain where it comes from and how it has been achieved so that it is "transparent, credible" and that the "readers or audience" are "more free and equal".

Camus said it, García Márquez maintained it and we, as trainers and teachers, have to work so that Journalism continues to be the best job in the world and that journalists provide context (journalistic memory).

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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