Watch: A road map for voters to spot disinformation in politics
Disinformation has become all too prevalent in our political campaigns, going viral online and leaving voters unsure what to believe. Join us for an informative discussion as we assess the impact that election disinformation is having on our politics.
Join The Kansas City Star and opinion writer Melinda Henneberger at 12:30 p.m. CT on Thursday, October 29 for a conversation about the escalating attacks on credible news sources and the false information encroaching on our social media feeds.
Our expert panel will help voters navigate the media landscape and provide a road map for spotting false and misleading claims.
This project was produced with support from a grant from the American Press Institute.
Please RSVP now to reserve your spot. And take a look at our guide to help you spot and avoid disinformation online.
Here’s a look at our panelists:
The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler has been editor and chief writer of The Fact Checker since 2011. In a career spanning more than three decades, Kessler has covered foreign policy, economic policy, the White House, Congress, politics, airline safety and Wall Street. He was The Post’s chief State Department reporter for nine years, and joined the Post from Newsday, where he was part of two reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in spot reporting. He is the author of “Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth” and “The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy.”
Jason Kander, a veteran and president of the Kansas City-based Veterans Community Project, is a Democratic former Missouri state legislator and Missouri secretary of state. After narrowly losing a U.S. Senate campaign to incumbent Roy Blunt in 2016, he founded Let America Vote, a national campaign against voter suppression. Kander has served as a teaching fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, worked as a CNN Commentator, and appeared on every major television network. His memoir, “Outside the Wire,” was a New York Times bestseller in 2018.
Patricia Weems Gaston, the Lacy C. Haynes Professor of Journalism at the University of Kansas, returned to her alma mater after a long career in journalism. At KU, she teaches, advises the staff of the University Daily Kansan, and serves as a mentor in the Rising Scholars Program. At The Washington Post, she spent decades as an editor on the paper’s National, Foreign and Editorial desks. Previously, Gaston worked at The Dallas Morning News, where she was an assistant foreign editor and an editor of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning series about violence against women.
Kathy Kiely, who holds the Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, has also taught journalism at the University of New Hampshire, American University, George Washington University and Princeton University. The inaugural Press Freedom Fellow for the National Press Club‘s Journalism Institute, Kiely’s reporting and editing career includes stints at the Sunlight Foundation and WAMU-FM, as an editor for Bill Moyers and Bloomberg Politics and as a reporter covering Congress and national politics for USA TODAY.
Spencer P. Boyer is director of the Washington office of the Brennan Center for Justice. He represents the Brennan Center among policymakers and advances the Brennan Center’s federal advocacy strategy on major democracy, justice, national security and civil liberties issues. He served in senior roles in both terms of the Obama administration. From 2014-2017, he was the national intelligence officer for Europe in the National Intelligence Council — the center for long-range strategic thinking within the U.S. intelligence community. From 2009- 2011, he was a deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
Ian Vandewalker is the Brennan Center for Justice’s senior counsel for the Democracy Program, where he works to address foreign interference in U.S. elections and the influence of money in politics. He has published academic articles on election law and civil liberties and testified before Congress and in state and local legislatures. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Vandewalker held fellowships at the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Vera Institute of Justice and clerked for Hon. Frederic Block of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Event sponsor: American Press Institute
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 10:38 AM.