“The biggest thing I tend to worry about is the speed at which misinformation travels and the lack of control that a news organization — any news organization — has over it,” said Julie Pace, executive editor and senior vice president of The Associated Press. .

“The only thing we can do is make sure we fill the space with factual information that is as quick and as accurate as humanly possible to try to make sure that as misinformation circulates , fact-based reporting is just as well. ” said Pace.

The AP’s special role on election night includes tabulating the results of hundreds of elections across the country and calling winners and losers that takes into account raw data, polls and trends from past races. Throughout the campaign, the media has written stories showing how it’s done, and on election night, it will specifically detail why it made calls for individual states in the presidential contest.

Other organizations are making similar promises, including making it clear to people when it’s too early to jump to conclusions. “My mantra on election night is radical transparency,” said ABC News Washington bureau chief Rick Klein.

The Times will bring back to its website the most anxiety-inducing invention for election night coverage in some time — the Needle, which changes throughout the evening to measure the likelihood of victory for the presidential candidates. This time, it will be accompanied by more granular material explaining those moves, said Matthew Ericson, assistant managing editor.

The paper also assigns election night reporters to scour the Internet for conspiracy theories with the goal of debunking fake stories as quickly as possible.

Disinformation efforts have been ongoing during the campaign, such as organizations reporting false allegations of abuse against Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz that intelligence officials suspect originated in Russia. Fakes abounded in the wake of Helene in September, involving weather control and withholding of money in Republican-dominated areas.

NBC News has a vote watch team that will work on Election Day to monitor disinformation efforts and has assigned 30 reporters to be “county captains” to watch in areas where elections are expected to be particularly close . PBS is working with the PolitiFact fact-checking team on election night.

As they watch, journalists will have to weigh whether a false theory is getting enough attention that it’s worth debunking, or whether bringing it up simply amplifies it. That’s the most common concern that Tim Richardson, director of journalism and disinformation programs at PEN America, gets when training reporters on how to deal with fake stories.

“If it’s something you only see on a fringe platform, let it rest,” Richardson said. “But if it’s something that rises to the level where a large part of the public notices it and gets traction, then I should step in and debunk it.”

Periods of uncertainty in close elections are vulnerable points. “My fear is that bad actors are coming in to fill the void,” Richardson said.

In 2020, news organizations did not declare Joe Biden the winner until the Saturday after Election Day. Klein said it’s important for journalists to let people know that such delays during vote counting don’t necessarily mean something nefarious is going on. It may just take time to get right.

But that time four years ago is when former President Donald Trump’s false narrative that he was cheated on took root. His speech in the wee hours of election night, alleging fraud and claiming he won states where he didn’t, provided a stern test for the television networks showing his remarks live. If anything similar happens this year, either in public speaking or during interviews, the networks will have to weigh cuts or be ready with fact checks immediately.

ABC News aired a “Protecting Your Vote” series this fall highlighting false stories that are already circulating and could be expected to increase near or on Election Day, including the “myth” that there was a flood of non-citizen voters. Similarly, both Scott Pelley of CBS’s “60 Minutes” and Laura Barron-Lopez of PBS’s “NewsHour” have done extensive stories on how false stories of voter fraud have spread in Arizona.

“For us, it doesn’t start or stop with Election Day,” Klein said.

An NPR disinformation team looked at the issue from several angles, such as the role of artificial intelligence and the influence of other countries, and spent considerable time working to debunk the theory that there would be a wave of non-citizen voting, said Eric. Marrapodi, vice president of news programming. Although NPR offers live election night coverage from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Eastern, the radio network traditionally gets more listeners the following morning, he said.

“We have to make sure we check the hell out of everything,” Marrapodi said.

News organizations feel the weight of responsibility, especially as they have been dragged along given the way disinformation has metastasized.

“People aren’t sure what to believe anymore because our information ecosystem has become so polluted in so many ways,” said Richardson, a former Washington Post reporter.

“It’s one of the most critical services we do as a news organization,” said Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president for policy at NBC News. “Getting things right is a top priority. It’s one of the biggest nights for people who follow us for real information. We have to deliver this. We can’t shake ourselves.”

Election night coverage has changed considerably since getting the numbers right and analyzing it was the main concern. Richardson hopes news outlets are ready for what’s to come.

“I feel like we’re kind of in uncharted territory and I don’t know what’s going to come up,” he said. “We hope that the journalists are prepared. I think I am.”