Lessons in Innovation: How International News Organisations Combat Disinformation through Mission-Driven Journalism

"This report examines how digital-born news media in the Global South have developed innovative reporting and storytelling practices in response to growing disinformation problems."

From Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism with the University of Oxford, this second report of the Journalism Innovation Project is based upon frameworks of the first report described below and "aims to identify key indicators or markers for ‘sustainable’ journalism innovation." It does so through considering innovation at three news outlets: Rappler in the Philippines, the Daily Maverick in South Africa, and The Quint in India.

The first report, "Time to step away from the ‘bright, shiny things’? Towards a sustainable model of journalism innovation in an era of perpetual change", November 2018, described a cure for a focus on "'Shiny Things Syndrome' – obsessive pursuit of technology in the absence of clear and research-informed strategies," that cure being: "a 'user-led' approach to researching journalism innovation," as well as developing foundational frameworks to support it. A foundational framework, the "Journalism Innovation Wheel" presented in this report, is a visualisation of "the foundational work the Journalism Innovation Project is doing to develop adaptable new frameworks to support sustainable innovation. It illustrates that journalism innovation can happen among many different dimensions, often at the same time, combining, for example new forms of storytelling with new business models, or new distribution strategies with new forms of audience engagement."

The spokes of the wheel include:

• "Reporting and storytelling
• Audience engagement
• Technology and product
• Distribution
• Business
• Leadership and management
• Organisation and structure
• People and culture"

This report, focused on the reporting and storytelling spoke, uses qualitative fieldwork based on the Participatory Action Research model in which a reporter embedded in the staff of each news outlet gathered both field notes and published content, as well as doing in-depth interviews with "editors, CEOs, investigative journalists, reporters, product heads, fact-checkers, social media editors, community managers, videographers, innovation and research lab leaders, multimedia producers, and those occupying a range of hybrid or ‘bridge’ roles." Transcribing and coding allowed an analysis across the three organisations.

Commonalities include "distinctive missions (emphasising independent, public interest journalism) and their similarly structured business models (commercial, digital-born, audience-engaged, mobile-focused)." Two of the outlets launched membership portals for financial sustainability and audience collaboration (under consideration by the third, as well.) All three have experienced press freedom threats and digital technologies consequences of "viral disinformation, online harassment, and a history of platform-dependent distribution," including "orchestrated, state-linked disinformation campaigns dramatically amplified by the platforms in their countries - primarily via Facebook in the Philippines, Twitter in South Africa, and WhatsApp in India."

Key Lessons from how Rappler, Daily Maverick, and The Quint are "responding to disinformation by developing new and innovative reporting and storytelling techniques when faced with the ‘unintended consequences’ of digital transformation and external pressures and threats":

1. "A clear mission helps focus innovation....
2. Mission-driven journalism may divide audiences, but it is not the same as partisanship....
3. Ability to ‘pivot’ in response to a crisis is an innovation marker....
4. Audiences can be part of journalism innovation....
5. Reporting can fuel organisational innovation....
6. Innovation requires investment in new skills, tools, techniques, and training (no matter how limited resources are)....
7. Innovation can be based on core values but also require constant re-examination of whether a more fundamental shift is necessary....
8. Innovations need to be shared across the whole news organisation to avoid siloing....
9. With a clear mission, it is possible to do important, innovative journalism for a large audience even with limited resources...."