Study: Fox News smeared Alex Pretti dozens of times following his killing by federal agents
On January 24, Customs and Border Protection agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Minnesota intensive care nurse, during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis. In the week that followed, Fox News personalities and guests made at least 75 claims about Pretti that either wrongly alleged that he had been violent toward federal agents or directly blamed him for his own killing.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.
Related Knowledge Center: Democracy and politics
News organizations are scrambling to find a coverage approach that adequately informs the American public about the country’s slide from democracy to authoritarian rule.