As an extension of API and AP’s webinar series to support news organizations’ evolving needs when covering local elections and democracy, The Associated Press is taking over this month’s Need to Know Special Edition to share what they take into consideration when reporting on election results, misinformation, polling and more. Want to hear more? Register for the final webinar in our series to learn about AP’s vote count operation and approach to election coverage on Sept. 26.
Artificial intelligence is supercharging the threat of election disinformation worldwide, making it easy for anyone with a smartphone and a devious imagination to create fake — but convincing — content aimed at fooling voters.
With AI deepfakes, a candidate’s image can be altered, or placed into false context. Images may be used in ways that encourage voters to turn toward or away from candidates — or even to avoid the polls altogether. But perhaps the greatest threat to democracy, experts say, is that a surge of AI deepfakes could erode the public’s trust in what they see and hear.
To counter this threat, AP works to fact check and debunk misinformation at every level of its journalism — from fact checking reporting across all formats to producing separate fact check stories that aim to reach audiences where they are.
AP has also expanded explanatory reporting efforts to debunk elections misinformation and reach as many people as possible with the facts they need. This includes producing deep dives into how elections work through text stories, immersive digital storytelling, social media content and more. AP has also doubled down in its commitment to providing transparency into its own race calling operations, explaining in detail the status of key races, how AP declares winners and what goes into the race calls AP makes.
Local reporters are also an important frontline in the fight against mis- and disinformation. Leading up to November, questions to consider include: How are elections offices in your area preparing to respond to AI-generated content that attempts to mislead voters? Are any of your local candidates using generative AI technology? Are your state lawmakers considering legislation related to AI’s influence on elections?
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The press will be much more effective in serving people and strengthening democracy if it learns from what researchers are learning. Among the examples and takeaways, you will find that news leaders and non-news experts alike value the opportunity to think differently about the challenges in front of them, about how local news can change and how research can ask different questions.
Here are some resources we offered to help foster healthy, responsive and resilient news organizations in 2024.
We'll share some of the resources, tools and lessons learned from our training sessions and research help desk. We hope you can use these as you plan your continuing accountability coverage and start thinking about the next election on the horizon.
