Verify

Fox Corp. has unveiled Verify, a technical protocol available on an open-source basis that lets media companies register their content and grant usage rights to AI platforms along with enabling consumers to verify content authenticity.

For the health, safety and well-being of our local communities, it’s critical for all of us to understand the problem and how to fix it.

Tegna’s Verify investigative team has won a following of 100,000 and growing on TikTok, where a younger demographic has been drawn to its simple reportorial mission and authentic voice. TVNewsCheck’s Michael Depp talks with Verify’s Ariane Datil and Casey Decker about the dos and don’ts of making TikTok work for news. A full transcript of the conversation is included.

The fact-checking unit has seen surging subscribers on its YouTube and TikTok channels since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, and it’s using a variety of tools like RevEye, InVid, Google Maps and the Internet Archives Wayback Machine to debunk mis- and disinformation on the conflict.

Earlier this year, Tegna debuted its national VERIFY brand, building on the substantial growth of Verify content on its local media properties. Now, it has chosen Gabe Cohen, Ariane Datil and Brandon Lewis as hosts.

Tegna announced a big bet at this week’s Interactive Advertising Bureau NewFronts presentation: expanding its Verify fact-checking franchise to reach across the country. With this week’s announcement, Tegna joins other station groups expanding beyond their owned-and-operated markets to launch national brands, like NBC’s LX and ABC’s Localish. Verify, which grew out of an employee off-site brainstorming session six years ago, combines research and transparent sourcing to respond to timely questions in the news with a simple answer: true or false. The segments are produced by a central team as well as individual stations.

The station group taps Jonathan Forsythe as managing editor of its Verify anti-disinformation iniative. He will oversee the daily content production of Verify, including segments for television, web articles, social content and other products. He is also responsible for recruiting and managing Verify’s team of journalists, producers and audience-engagement specialists as well as working with Tegna stations to source story ideas and co-produce content.

The epidemic of misinformation helps Tegna check the box with new audiences. “Our audiences are consuming news and local news in a way that they never have before, where their lives literally depend on it,” says Ellen Crooke, Tegna’s VP of news. “They are desperate to find somebody without an agenda, without spin to take some of the things that are out there and help them be smarter about what’s true and what’s not true.”

The station group will work with First Draft to train its journalists to identify and verify false information online and help audiences spot misinformation. It will also expand its news fact-checking initiative Verify.