The SCAM project

SCAM is coming to an end (only the project, unfortunatly). After four years we could finally organise an end conference last week at Pressens hus. Great talks by former CEO of FullFact Will Moy, project members Lucas Graves, Bente Kalsnes and Oscar Westlund. Lasha Kavtaradze presenter a preliminary version of what will become our Online Guide to Digital Source Criticsm, Ståle Grut presented his work on visual source criticism, and we had an interesting debate between Nordic fact-checkers. All wrapped up at a final dinner at wonderful Ekebergrestauranten. More info in comment.

Publication alert!

PhD candidate Reidun J. Samuelsen of the The SCAM project has published her first international article as lead author! (link in comments). In the article, Reidun with SCAM-collegaues Steen Steensen and Bente Kalsnes investigate the relevance of technology to verification practices in Norwegian newsrooms during the 2021 national parliamentary election campaign.

The study is based on responses to a survey of Norwegian journalists and editors and ethnographic case studies of three newsrooms – the regional newspaper Nordlys, the national public broadcaster NRK, and the fact-checking organization Faktisk.no.

The findings show a discrepancy between the alleged potential of new technologies and the everyday practices of newswork and fact-checking – also in the digitally advanced Norwegian media industry. The authors found tensions between established routines and cultures in the newsroom and the push for the renewal of journalistic methods, which can be sorted under two headings: strategy vs. practice and proximity vs. distance to the beat and sources.

The article is available open access.