AMITT/counters/C00188.md

Counter C00188: Newsroom/Journalist training to counter influence moves

• Summary: Includes SEO influence. August 2014, Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya commissioned a poll in France with poorly worded questions and a statistically insignificant subsample that RT used to back a story titled “15% of French people back ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] militants, poll finds.” The story and summary infographic circulated on the internet, initially appearing primarily on French sites. After a week, the generally respectable digital U.S. news outlet Vox ran the story, now titled “One in Six French People Say They Support ISIS.” Although this effect has now worn off or been overwritten, for a time—despite a later story from The Washington Post debunking the claim—typing “ISIS France” into Google resulted in an autosuggestion of “ISIS France support” (Borthwick, 2015). Includes promotion of a “higher standard of journalism”: journalism training “would be helpful, especially for the online community. Includes Strengthen local media: Improve effectiveness of local media outlets. Using eastern Latvia media outlets as an example, one expert noted that the media outlets are “very weak,” are often politically affiliated, or have “little local oligarchs that control them.”

• Playbooks: TechCamp bringing together local journalists, with a several-day training program that includes a sponsored yearlong investigative project

• Metatechnique: M001 - resilience

• Resources needed:

• Belongs to tactic stage: TA08

Actors	Sectors
A006 educator	Civil Society
A021 media organisation	Media

Counters these Tactics

Counters these Techniques
T0001 5Ds (dismiss, distort, distract, dismay, divide)
T0003 Leverage Existing Narratives
T0022 Conspiracy narratives
T0027 Adapt existing narratives
T0045 Use fake experts
T0008 Create fake or imposter news sites
T0010 Cultivate ignorant agents
T0039 Bait legitimate influencers
T0046 Search Engine Optimization

Seen in incidents

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