Eagleton holds panel featuring disinformation scholar, NPR host

On Wednesday, the Eagleton Institute of Politics hosted a program titled "Navigating the News in the 2024 Election," featuring Michel Martin and Nina Jankowicz.

Martin is a journalist and host of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." Jankowicz is the co-founder and chief executive officer of the American Sunlight Project, which works to expose and prevent disinformation campaigns.  

Martin asked Jankowicz about what drew her to studying disinformation, the growing prevalence of fabrication in the media and the consequences of false information being spread on the internet. Jankowicz described observing an increase in disinformation in the U.S. in 2000, which grew exponentially in 2014 with the entrance of former President Donald J. Trump onto the political scene.

"I think there have not been enough consequences for people who are making their lives out of lies," said Jankowicz.

In 2022, Jankowicz was appointed head of the Disinformation Governance Board, a team aiming to provide Americans with trustworthy information under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security. After three weeks, the board was suspended, and Jankowicz later faced threats to her and her family because of her work there.

She explained how people who called her to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee now lie about her and stated that the only way to hold politicians accountable is to vote.

Jankowicz described the consequences that lies can have both for individuals and for society. When false information is spread, there are risks to public health, the economy and democracy, she said.

Jankowicz began her career studying Russian in St. Petersburg, Russia, and became involved in the nonprofit sector by studying the functions of democracies. 

Her interest in disinformation started when Russia described the National Democratic Institute, the organization that she was working for at the time, as a Central Intelligence Agency outpost trying to undercut the government. 

"I saw what Russia was saying about us on the internet and I said we gotta be more proactive," said Jankowicz. "We need to get our story out there, because there's nothing nefarious about what we're doing."

Jankowicz compared her experiences in Russia and Ukraine to what she is witnessing now in the U.S. In Ukraine, she said telecommunications companies subsidize the use of apps like Facebook, causing Ukrainians to treat the social platform as their portal to the internet and, subsequently, public figures to use it as a political targeting tool.

Now, according to Jankowicz, the same disinformation tools used to interfere in Ukrainian elections are being replicated by campaigns in the U.S.

Martin discussed a finding from Bill Adair, founder of the fact-checking website PolitiFact, who said that disinformation has become a bigger part of the culture in the Republican party than in the Democratic party. 

"I think everybody needs to tone it down because you should not be threatened violently for doing your job," said Jankowicz.

Both presidential campaigns are targeting ads and sometimes altering news headlines to be more favorable to their candidate, she said.

As for how to deal with the existence of disinformation on an individual level, Jankowicz suggested that everybody who takes in information online needs to be cognizant of where the information is coming from and how it is being shared.

"If you feel yourself getting emotional, take a breather from your social media. Put your phone down, go for a little walk, and if you find yourself still thinking about the thing that got you so worked up in a couple of minutes, then you can come back and do some lateral reading," said Jankowicz.