Quick summary: As the 2024 presidential election approaches, navigating falsehoods becomes increasingly critical. This essay explores the dangers of misinformation, highlights efforts to combat it by URL Media news partners and provides strategies to help you to discern and think critically when evaluating news sources this election season, with reporting from Capital B, Documented, AsAmNews, TANTV Studios, Outlier Media, Prism, WURD Radio and Epicenter-NYC.

Credit: Shutterstock

How to combat misinformation & falsehoods this heated election season

Hey fam,With less than 110 days until Election Day, we've been told endlessly that this is the most crucial election of our lives. Yet, no amount of political forewarning could have prepared us for this tense political moment. In recent weeks, our timelines and news feeds have been saturated with conspiracy theories and misinformation as calls for Biden to abandon his re-election bid grow louder within the Democratic Party. We've also witnessed an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and a fatal police shooting near the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee.  With all that is happening, URL Media wants to provide readers of this newsletter with a game plan to push back against false and misleading information this election season, especially in a year when researchers say misinformation poses an unprecedented threat to democracy in the U.S. Have you decided who you’ll be voting for — or whether you’ll be voting at all? This newsletter includes tools to help you critically evaluate what you see, hear and read in the media and online, helping you separate fiction from fact.At URL Media, our partners are doing the good work of holding elected officials and mainstream media outlets accountable for misinformation and disinformation, including falsehoods that further harm marginalized communities, incite fear among the public and manipulate voters. But first, here’s a bit about why misinformation and conspiracy theories are dangerous — and why people believe them.

Featured Stories

  • Amber Rose’s endorsement of Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention has sparked significant controversy, given her previous criticisms of him and her advocacy for women’s rights. For Trump, what does Amber Rose bring to the GOP table?TANTV Studios has more >

  • What can be done to combat the rising danger of extremist events in the United States? On this 2023 episode of Our Body Politic, host Farai Chideya speaks with experts about what can be done in this fight against extremism. 🎧 Listen to the episode here >

  • The Seattle Police Department has terminated officer Daniel Auderer, who was recorded making callous remarks about Jahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old student who was killed by a speeding Seattle police car in January 2023.Read more about the case from India Currents >

  • For Prism, Rashida James-Saadiya discusses the deep connection between African Americans and Palestinians, rooted in shared suffering and ongoing efforts to heal in a perpetually unjust world.Read the full op-ed here >

'If Biden steps off the ticket, there is only one person who should replace him' by Solomon Jones from WURD Radio

Credit: Lawrence Jackson, The White House via WURD Radio

In the wake of a hollow debate performance that left many Democrats nervous about Joe Biden’s prospects for winning reelection in November, the president has vowed to stay in the race, despite the growing calls for his withdrawal.

Whether he stays is up to him, but if President Biden believes he is the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump, I think he should stay in the race and run on his record.

Facebook
X
Website
Instagram