Campaign design / art direction
Fake News
Since taking office, president trump has used the term ‘fake news’ as a political weapon - a way of instantly discrediting news he doesn’t like. And when a media savvy head of state repeatedly uses a catch phrase to undermine his critics, it catches on. As a result, many american’s now use the term to describe factual news stories that simply don’t align with their politics. A situation that has confused the public and seriously damaged america’s trust in the free press. And when public no longer trusts the journalists that fight everyday to keep them informed – democracy suffers.
The society of professional journalists wanted to restore faith in the free press and educate people on the differences between false news that’s created to deceive and news that’s been labelled as ‘fake’ but is actually based in truthful reporting.
To stop the misuse of “fake news,” spj aimed their efforts at the source: president trump himself. Using satire to make a sobering point, spj applied to trademark the term to prevent the president from misusing it. They then sent him cease & desist letters whenever he used “fake news” to undermine the press. To launch the campaign spj created a socially shared video as a primer to the idea, as well as an educational piece on what fake news is and isn’t. Finally, a call-to-action encouraged people to visit the spj website to learn more about professional journalism and its role in a healthy democracy.
The campaign was earned coverage from over 80 media outlets worldwide, 400,000 social shares and an estimated 1.3 billion impressions—all without a single dollar of paid media. In the days following launch, conversations about what “fake news” is and isn’t took place all over the internet (reddit, twitter, facebook, etc.), even law firms, corporations and personal bloggers published their reactions to spj’s headline grabbing campaign. Most importantly, we empowered people in the united states and beyond to think critically about the news, and established a 110-year old organization as defenders of the truth in the age of social media.
