Walter Cronkite Award Recipients Highlight Challenge Of Reporting In Era Of Misinformation

deadline.com:

The winners of this year’s recipients of the Walter Cronkite Awards had a common theme: Combating misinformation. So when award sponsor USC Annenberg’s Norman Lear Center held a National Press Club luncheon for the honorees last week, there was a bit of reminder of the stakes: During the ceremony news unfolded of the unsealing of former President Donald Trump’s federal indictment.

Many of the winners reported on Trump and his false claims of a stolen 2020 election, something that he has repeated during his current election campaign.

He’s also called the indictment itself the “boxes hoax.” Martin Kaplan, director of The Norman Lear Center, said, “Disinformation is an apt focus in particular for the Cronkite award, not only because it feels like disinformation is everywhere all at once, but because the namesake of this award is Walter Cronkite” who was known as “the most trusted man in America.” ABC News’s Jonathan Karl, an honoree for Reporting on the Big Lie, was not present but said in a video message, “There’s one area where we as journalists must take sides.

We stand for truth, we stand against disinformation. When confronted with those who tell us that up is down or day is night, or that a free and fair election was stolen, or that an attack on the Capitol is nothing more than a tourist visit, we must take a side.