{"id":101088,"date":"2017-03-20T13:19:55","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T13:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=101088"},"modified":"2019-09-10T15:36:15","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T14:36:15","slug":"media-spotlight-mevan-babakar-full-fact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/media-spotlight-mevan-babakar-full-fact\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Spotlight: Mevan Babakar, Full Fact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mevan\u00a0Babakar is a digital products\u00a0manager at Full Fact<\/a>,\u00a0a registered independent charity who halt the spread of misinformation with government departments and research institutions. Since joining Full Fact in 2014, Mevan has made a huge impact, running the charities first\u00a0ever crowdfunding campaign to <\/strong>factcheck<\/strong> the election, raising over \u00a333,000. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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In this spotlight interview, Mevan chats to us about why she is glad that people are waking up to the severity of false information, how automated factchecking will help journalists in the digital age, why there is a trust epidemic in relation to the government, and how effective she thinks Parliament’s inquiry will be into fake news. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Full-Fact-Vueliospotlight\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Can you introduce yourself and speak a little bit about your professional background?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>I\u2019m Mevan, the digital products and supporter communications manager at Full Fact. Full Fact is the UK\u2019s independent factchecking charity. I\u2019ve done everything from running crowdfunding campaigns and leading the website rebuild, to building automated factchecking tools. Titles don\u2019t mean much in a small team – you end up doing all sorts.<\/p>\n

I joined Full Fact in 2014 after working in the digital team at Cancer Research. Before that, I worked at Bite the Ballot, a campaign that registers young people to vote. There I launched Britain\u2019s first ever National Voter Registration Day. I graduated with a Masters in Bioengineering from the University of Sheffield, where I spent most of my time campaigning on democratic issues, and playing with lasers.<\/p>\n

What do you most like about being the digital products manager at Full Fact? And what are the challenges?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Most small charities don\u2019t have digital team’s, or developers. The nature of charities, and funding from trusts doesn\u2019t really support the growth of the burgeoning \u201cdigital charities\u201d. But sometimes the problem is that the charity just isn\u2019t thinking big enough!<\/p>\n

When I joined, as a communications officer, we didn\u2019t have a digital team. I had to work quite hard to convince the team that this was the right direction for us to go in\u00a0and that it would be worth it in the long run. Luckily they had faith in me and decided to give it a shot. We haven\u2019t looked back since.<\/p>\n

I feel quite lucky and privileged to have carved out this niche at Full Fact. Building tools to help scale and target the work we do has only improved our reach and impact. Automated factchecking, which is what I\u2019m working on at the moment, will take that to a whole new level.<\/p>\n

But the problem with developing tools is that you often end up needing more experienced developers. Raising that kind of money in the charity sector takes time, we don\u2019t have the luxury of VCs and investment in the same way that startups do – and sometimes the time lag can kill any momentum dead in its tracks – this remains a big challenge for us, and many others.<\/p>\n

What do you think about the rise of fake news and how news corporations are responding to it?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Fake news isn\u2019t new. And it means a lot of different things! Claire Wardle from First Draft News has written a great post<\/a> about that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m really glad to see everyone wake up to the severity of this problem. When we started out we had to justify that bad information leads to bad decisions, but now it feels like it\u2019s spread to public consciousness in a way which moves us straight to \u201cwhat can we do about it?\u201d That\u2019s quite a unique position to be in as a campaign.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s even more exciting is the fact that so many people are rolling their sleeves up to start working on what that solution might be. It\u2019s great to see big social media companies introducing products that help people wade through it all. Things like the Google news factcheck label, Facebook’s new factchecking trial with factcheckers. Even verified accounts can help people distinguish what they can and can\u2019t trust.<\/p>\n

Some news outlets are seeing this as an opportunity to be very introspective about what trust means to their readers, and how they can improve it. Then there\u2019s the HeroX factcheck challenge<\/a>, and the fake news challenge<\/a>. I commend all these efforts!<\/p>\n

You’ve worked with the BBC, Sky News and CNN, who have all been accused of disseminating fake news. How are you working with these corporations to ensure that the news that they are giving the public is accurate?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>We\u2019ve live factchecked election or referendum debates with all three of them. We\u2019ve also factchecked the BBC and Sky News and got corrections from them too!<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve found that working alongside journalists is a good way to make sure the public is getting more accurate information in the news. But we\u2019re a small team and can\u2019t help every time we\u2019re asked. Normally \u2018working with\u2019 involves writing briefings, providing live factchecking, providing staff for interview, or putting them in touch with subject specialists when a request requires additional in-depth expertise.<\/p>\n

We are also big on the \u2018they know we check\u2019 effect. Just knowing that someone will be scrutinising the claims you\u2019re making raises the cost of putting misinformation into the world. We\u2019re working on raising that threshold even further.<\/p>\n

To combat fake news, do you think that every news outlet should have their own in-house Full Fact department?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Full Fact\u2019s automated factchecking project aims to put effective factchecking tools into the hands of journalists and into every newsroom, which should make the process much simpler and less time-consuming.<\/p>\n

Some outlets already have factcheckers. The BBC is setting up Reality Check. Channel 4 already has Factcheck. We don\u2019t know what roles these factcheckers have within their organisations.<\/p>\n

The trouble is that with 24-hour news cycles and the rise of data, journalists are stretched already – we hope they\u2019ll take up automated factchecking because we believe it\u2019ll make their jobs easier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was recently announced that Parliament will launch an inquiry in fake news, what are your thoughts on this?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>It\u2019s really good that it\u2019s getting recognition from MPs. We are likely to put in a submission using the evidence we\u2019ve gathered over the years from our body of factchecks. It should make for an interesting read.<\/p>\n

How do you meet the challenges of identifying false information in real-time, in an age where information is shared so quickly on social media?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Traditionally it takes preparation, in-house expertise, and links to external subject specialists. Now, with tools tailored to the task, we can amplify the scale factcheckers work at, and the speed with which they react. We\u2019re building tools that can automatically monitor subtitles and get verdicts in real time.<\/p>\n

Technology can be deployed to balance out the information ecosystem, but that\u2019s an active choice that we have to make as factcheckers, as publishers, as journalists, and as voters.<\/p>\n

It has been said that we live in a post-truth era. Bearing this in mind, do you think that ‘real facts’ will become less important in the future?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t govern a country in a \u201cpost-truth\u201d way. Eventually, people\u2019s reality doesn\u2019t match up with what they hear, and we lose the precious trust we have left.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t think facts will ever be less important, but I do think they are inflated too often. They\u2019re sometimes used in a way that can seem to diminish lived experience. For example, say five of your friends got a \u00a31,500 raise but you didn\u2019t, we\u2019d say the average salary rose by \u00a31,250, but you don\u2019t identify with that number at all. We talk too often in averages for things that don\u2019t necessarily match up to people\u2019s reality. I think we need to get better at talking about these things in more nuanced ways.<\/p>\n

What steps do you take to ensure that you are impartial?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

To name just a few we…<\/p>\n