News Co/Lab

Author: Dan Gillmor

Dan Gillmor is an internationally recognized leader in new media and digital media literacy. He’s author of the 2009 book, Mediactive, discussing media literacy in the digital age from a journalist’s perspective. Articles dan.gillmor@asu.edu Bio

McClatchy launches story-level feature to boost journalistic transparency

Discover how a major news company has built a new CMS tool to help its journalists make a transparent leap forward.

Helping corrections catch up to mistakes in a social media world

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram published a column that turned out to be wrong. What happened next was the catalyst for an experiment in journalistic transparency that we believe has huge potential.

In a political year, Fresno Bee used transparency and conversation to help community understand journalism, and itself

Editor Joe Kieta: “We want to be transparent about how The Bee creates its journalism.”

KCQ, explainers and more: Kansas City Star goes deeper into transparency and engagement

Journalistic engagement and transparency are essential parts of improving local news ecosystems, to help communities better understand journalism and to help journalists better understand their communities. Here’s how one newsroom is doing it.

Why the upcoming age of fraudulent videos is dangerous, and what we can do about it

We recently did a Q&A with ASU Now, the daily newletter, about the very worrisome probability that phony videos will soon inject even more poison into our information ecosystem. We’re reposting it here, with permission: Fake news videos aren’t new, but they are on the rise and more realistic than ever due to technological advances. […]

How do people who are sources for journalists see the news?

As we move forward with our newsroom project — working with journalists and community members to boost the community information ecosystem — we’re doing some research beforehand. We’re posting a draft today of the third of three surveys. The first is aimed at measuring a community’s news “awareness,” as we’re putting it. The second looks […]

Do journalists think they should help communities understand news?

We’re posting a draft today of the second of three surveys. The first one, previously shared, seeks to gauge community “news awareness,” as we’re putting it. This second one is about what the people in the newsroom know, and how they feel, about some principles we’re trying to help them put into practice. We’re looking […]

Kristy Roschke, Managing Director

Good news for us! The News Co/Lab has named its first managing director, Kristy Roschke. The details are in the press release, which you’ll find below. But I wanted to say a few words about why I’m so jazzed that she is joining us. Kristy has all kinds of relevant skills and knowledge: education, project […]

Fake videos are coming; are we ready?

In the ASU Now daily newsletter, Eric and I answered some questions about the coming plague of videos that have been faked to show things that didn’t actually happen. We’re worried, but there are ways we — as a society — can and must fight back. Here’s what we had to say. Dan GillmorDan Gillmor […]

Measuring a community’s “news awareness” — your feedback?

As we move forward with our newsroom project — working with journalists and community members to improve local information ecosystems — we’re going to do some polling at the outset. The first of our surveys will be online and aimed at learning something about what we are calling a community’s “news awareness” — among other […]

Kansas City update: corrections, FAQ, and more

If transparency is an essential principle for a news organization, nowhere is that more important than in how it handles corrections. A team at The Kansas City Star aims to help their newsroom be a leader in the news industry in doing this right. Before I tell you more, meet the members of a Star […]

Advocating more action on the demand side…

The catchphrases of the past year — “alternative facts,” “fake news,” “truth decay,” and a “post-truth world” — speak to why the journalistic metaphor of shining a light is no longer sufficient.