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“Who ya gonna believe — me or your own eyes?”
—Chico Marx as ‘Chicolini’ in the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup
Now that we’re battling two epidemics — not just COVID-19, but an “infodemic” of disinformation, misinformation, and missing information — Chicolini’s question doesn’t sound as absurd as it probably did in 1933. And certainly not as funny. Sorting out fact from falsehood or reality from rumor or substance from spin has arguably never been harder or more important — which is why TEGNA’s VERIFY franchise is having its moment. “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.”
VERIFY has come a long way since a team of employees came up with the idea at a company retreat more than four years ago: a segment in which reporters would fact-check the news based on viewers’ questions. The latest expansion, which launched today, is a play for younger users: a new weekly VERIFY feature on Snapchat’s Discover page, which aggregates content from a range of publishing partners. “The Snapchat Discover platform reaches tens of millions of people a day,” says Adam Ostrow, TEGNA’s Chief Digital Officer. “So it’s a really good opportunity for us to get VERIFY