The Trusted News Initiative creates Asia-Pacific network 

Partners in the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) have agreed to create a regional Asia-Pacific network to work against the spread of disinformation.  

The TNI is expanding its Asia-Pacific presence with the addition of the following news organisations:  

The creation of the Asia-Pacific network will enable the TNI’s regional partners to share their insights about tackling disinformation and discuss trends in the region.  They will draw on their expertise to share best practices and findings with the wider TNI and alert each other to the most dangerous forms of disinformation through the TNI cooperative framework. 

The media organisations that now make up TNI’s new Asia-Pacific network have received training, funded by the Google News Initiative, to help their journalists navigate the disinformation environment. 

The TNI is an industry collaboration of major news and global tech organisations, led by the BBC, working together to stop the spread of disinformation where it poses risk of real-world harm.   

Liliane Landor, senior controller of BBC News International Services and director of BBC World Service Director, said: “With the creation of TNI’s first regional network, we are bringing together trusted Asia-Pacific news-publishing organisations to further reinforce our collaboration and to make it even more efficient and productive.”   

Matt Cooke, head of Google News Lab, said: “As part of the Google News Initiative’s ongoing efforts to strengthen journalism and fight misinformation, we’ve worked with a range of academics, news organisations and nonprofits across the globe for several years.  

“Now, we’re supporting the Trusted News Initiative to deliver targeted, expert training workshops on a variety of digital tools to help journalists as they seek to continue day-to-day verification and fact-checking in newsrooms across the region.” 

Current TNI partners include AP, AFP, BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Financial Times, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, Information Futures Lab, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Microsoft, The Nation Media Group, Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, and The Washington Post.   

The TNI partnership works collectively in four main areas: