WASHINGTON -- More than 20 students at Howard University will be live checking election night, with one goal: to fight fake news in the 2018 campaign.
Truth Be Told, a student-led group within the Media Journalism and Film department at the Cathy Hughes school of Communications, received a $10,000 flash grant from Poynter Institute in October, to combat the spread of fake news during the Midterm season.
The grant afforded students to travel alongside campaigns in Florida, Georgia and Maryland -- states with sizable African-American communities and heated races with African-American candidates -- as well as cover local beats in the DMV.
Our Verify team spoke with the next generation of fact-checkers about our shared mission of curbing misinformation.
“We’re doing everything,” Jacob Pinkney, a senior at Howard University and student reporter at Truth Be Told, said. “From producing videos, to writing stories, to fact-checking. It’s just a great overall concept of what media is in the 21st century.”
Being based in U.S. capital enabled students to analyze local races.
“I was lucky enough to be able to cover the Ben Jealous part of it,” senior and Truth Be Told reporter Evan Brooks said. “During debate time, [Jealous and Hogan] go back and forth, so it is really crucial to check the facts and see who is telling the truth.”
Students at Howard University are redefining the narrative: younger generations are both thirsty for politics and skeptical about what they read online.
“Sometimes if [a tweet] gets a lot of likes or a bunch of retweets, you’re like, ‘I’m going to go with that because that seems like the popular thing to do,” senior Breon Perry said. “This class actually takes the time to take that information, dissect it and go deeper.”
Leading up to election night, the student newsroom has covered stories like voter suppression in Georgia, debunking false figures about the crime rate in Tallahassee, Florida, and discovered that millennials get a bad rap and actually vote on par with other generations.
Student Maya King covering the Andrew Gillum campaign in Florida spoke about her experience fact-checking on the road.
"Tallahassee is being portrayed as a very dangerous city and how that's not entirely true… it's actually a pretty safe city," King said.
Even when misinformation is spread at the highest level of the U.S. government, student journalists say it’s everyone’s responsibility to speak up about the truth, remaining unbiased.
"I think as journalists the goal is to just stay on the straight and narrow,” Pinkney said. “Regardless of who says what...the facts always win out."
Truth Be Told’s work is published on the school’s news-wire, Howard University News Service, allowing students to receive national recognition. You can view their work online or on Twitter or Facebook at @HUNewsService.
