By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press

NEW YORK — As the media prepares for election night, they’re not just focused on what’s happening. They monitor what is not working.

Several plans to combat disinformation are in place in the newsrooms following the culmination of a hard-fought campaign on November 5. The Associated Press and others will take special steps to explain what they are doing. The New York Times tasks journalists with scouring the Internet for the first signs of new conspiracies. An NPR reporter will research the harms created by artificial intelligence. ABC News tried “pre-bundling” to prepare its viewers.

False stories that infected the political debate after Hurricane Helene this fall remind us how quickly things can spread.

“What worries me most is how quickly misinformation circulates and the lack of control that any news organization – any news organization – has over it,” said Julie Pace, editor in chief. and senior vice president of the Associated Press. .

“The only thing we can do is make sure that we fill the space with factual information as quickly and accurately as possible, to try to ensure that as misinformation spreads, fact-based reporting does. are also. ” Pace said.

The AP’s special role on election night is to tabulate results from hundreds of elections across the country and make calls for winners and losers based on raw data, polling and trends from past elections . Throughout the campaign, the point of sale written stories that show how it’s done and, on election night, he will detail specifically why he made calls to individual states for the presidential race.

Other organizations are making similar promises, including making it clear to people that it’s too early to draw conclusions. “My mantra on election night is radical transparency,” said Rick Klein, ABC News’ Washington bureau chief.

They ensure that news consumers are prepared

The Times will bring back to its website the most distressing invention in some time for overnight election coverage: the needle, which changes throughout the evening to measure presidential candidates’ probability of victory. This time, it will be accompanied by more detailed documents explaining these moves, said Matthew Ericson, associate editor.

The paper also tasks journalists on election night with scouring the Internet for conspiracy theories, with the goal of debunking false information as quickly as possible.

Monitoring of disinformation efforts continued throughout the campaign, as did the organizations reporting on the facts. false allegations of abuse against Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, who intelligence officials suspect is of Russian origin. Lies abounded after Helene in September, involving weather control and withholding money from Republican-dominated areas.

NBC News has a vote monitoring team that will work on Election Day to monitor disinformation efforts and has designated 30 journalists as “county captains” to monitor areas where elections are expected to be particularly close. PBS works with PolitiFact’s fact-checking team on election night.

As they watch, journalists will have to ask themselves whether a false theory is getting enough attention to merit debunking, or whether its emergence only amplifies it. This is Tim Richardson’s most common concern, journalism and disinformation program director of PEN America, gets it when he trains journalists on how to handle fake news.

“If it’s something you only see on a fringe platform, let it sit,” Richardson said. “But if it’s something that reaches a level where a large portion of the public notices it and gains traction, then you should step in and debunk it.”

They look for vulnerable points after the vote

Periods of uncertainty during close elections are vulnerable points. “I worry that bad actors will come in and fill the void,” Richardson said.

In 2020, news organizations did not declare Joe Biden the winner until the Saturday following polling day. Klein said it’s important for journalists to let people know that such delays in counting votes don’t necessarily mean something nefarious is happening. It may just take time to get it right.

But four years ago, that’s when former President Donald Trump’s false narrative that he was deceived took root. Her speeches in the early hours on election night, alleging fraud and saying he won states where he didn’t strain television networks that carried his remarks live. If something similar happens this year, whether in public speeches or during interviews, networks will need to consider cutting back on broadcasts or be ready immediately to do fact-checking.

ABC News aired a “Protect Your Vote” series this fall that highlights false stories that are already widespread and can be expected to intensify as Election Day approaches or day, including “myth” that there will be a flood of non-citizen voters. Likewise, Scott Pelley on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and Laura Barron-Lopez on PBS’s “NewsHour” have done numerous reports on how false stories of voter fraud have spread in Arizona.

“For us, it doesn’t start and stop with Election Day,” Klein said.

An NPR disinformation team examined the issue from several angles, such as the role of artificial intelligence and the influence of other countries, and spent a lot of time debunking the theory that there is a flood of votes non-citizens, said Eric Marrapodi, vice president of news programs. Although NPR covers election night live from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Eastern, the radio network traditionally attracts more listeners the next morning, he said.

“We have to make sure we double-check everything,” Marrapodi said.

They are preparing for a new responsibility

The media feel the weight of their responsibility, especially since they have been hampered by the metastasis of disinformation.

“People don’t know what to believe anymore because our information ecosystem has become so polluted in so many ways,” said Richardson, a former Washington Post reporter.

“This is one of the most essential services we provide as a news organization,” said Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president for policy at NBC News. “Getting it right is a top priority. This is one of the biggest nights for people who follow us for factual information. We must achieve this. We cannot weaken.

Media coverage of election night has changed significantly since the days when accuracy of counting and analysis was the primary concern. Richardson hopes the media is prepared for what’s to come.

“I feel like we’re kind of in uncharted territory and I don’t know what’s going to come out of it,” he said. “I hope the journalists are ready. I think they are.

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.