Firma

Al Jazeera, a Qatari media organisation operating in 70 countries across the world, has its own fact-checking agency called Sanad. It supports hundreds of journalists, helping them to quickly deliver comprehensive and accurate news content.

Tantangan

Para jurnalis ini harus secara teratur memeriksa fakta dari sumber-sumber dan terhubung dengan tim editorial internal di agensi Sanad. Komunikasi ini sangat penting bagi keberhasilan para reporter yang membutuhkan jawaban cepat dari berbagai belahan dunia. Namun, mereka secara konsisten mengalami beberapa masalah utama.

• Email terlalu lambat. When communicating with journalists in the field, email was slow and took too much effort. If a reporter wanted to verify a specific quote or statistic, they had to find a laptop with internet access, upload images, draft and send the email, and then wait for a reply. This led to a lot of back-and-forth and was ultimately too time consuming to fact check sources on the go.

• Semua responsnya dilakukan secara manual. Every request could only be processed by a live agent on weekdays during working hours. Meanwhile, journalists work 24/7, limiting their ability to break timely news.

• Teknologi menghambat - bukan membantu. Many field reporters work from remote areas with limited access ke internet or even a computer. They needed a solution that was not only faster and automated, but also far more mobile-friendly and operable on low-bandwidth.

Selain memproses permintaan pengecekan fakta secara lebih efisien, tim editorial ingin memberdayakan para jurnalis untuk dengan mudah mencari newsfeed Sanad, dan mereka ingin meningkatkan keterlibatan dengan konten buletin email mereka. Pada akhirnya, mereka ingin mendukung para jurnalis ini melalui saluran yang lebih nyaman, tersedia sepanjang waktu, dan lebih mudah digunakan.

Solusi

The Sanad team introduced 24/7 support via WhatsApp Business as a new way for journalists to send and receive communications with Al Jazeera newsrooms. They saw immediate benefits.

Peningkatan jangkauan buletin harian
The Al Jazeera fact-checking agency now sends two daily newsletters to their journalists through WhatsApp, detailing the latest news stories to be aware of. They also send real-time alerts about news that has been falsified, so journalists are instantly aware of the latest fake news, too.

Dukungan pencarian dan pemeriksaan fakta 24/7
Journalists can now search for specific news topics and keywords through WhatsApp, making it easier to find supporting articles and facts for their stories. Reporters can also identify fake news directly on WhatsApp by sending links, images, or text messages. If something is not found in the database, the Al Jazeera journalists can send claims-check requests directly to a specialised team for further verification.

"Informasi yang salah di media sosial dan platform lainnya dapat menyebabkan konsekuensi yang merusak. Dengan mengotomatiskan bagian-bagian penting dari komunikasi Al Jazeera dengan jurnalis, kami berhasil melawan penyebaran berita palsu."

Khaled Attia, Head of Communications, Sanad at Al Jazeera

Sanad juga membangun bot WhatsApp yang dapat secara otomatis mengidentifikasi siapa reporter dalam tim berita yang lebih luas ketika mereka pertama kali menghubungi nomor WhatsApp. Setiap permintaan kemudian diidentifikasi berdasarkan nama reporter dan dapat dilihat di kemudian hari karena tersimpan di database.

Mengurangi waktu respons pertama ke jaringan jurnalis
Journalists can request support through WhatsApp by submitting a ticket in seconds now. The team built specific flows to automatically answer their most recent fact-check questions. Journalists can also request a status update on their tickets in real time instead of waiting for a human response.

Hasil

Launching WhatsApp as an additional channel to communicate with journalists has helped Al Jazeera immensely. The Bird API easily integrates with their team’s internal systems and databases, streamlining their entire fact-finding and newswire operation.

Their goal was to improve fact-checking and ultimately help their team release breaking news, faster. Now, 44% of Al Jazeera’s active journalists use the requests service through WhatsApp, making it Sanad’s fastest growing channel to communicate with journalists and handle support inquiries.

They’ve seen 173% more fact-checking requests come in via WhatsApp in 2022 compared to 2021, and 20% of their overall messages are now handled via WhatsApp.

Hal ini telah memungkinkan mereka untuk memberikan bantuan langsung kepada para jurnalis dan meningkatkan keterlibatan secara keseluruhan antara jurnalis mereka dan ruang redaksi Sanad. Hal ini membantu para jurnalis Al Jazeera melakukan pekerjaan mereka dengan lebih baik, di mana pun mereka berada.

"Al Jazeera menerima banyak sekali permintaan verifikasi berita setiap hari - banyak di antaranya yang sudah beredar. Sebelumnya, resolusi untuk setiap pertanyaan jurnalis tidak terjamin. Sekarang, mereka bisa memanfaatkan basis data kami sendiri, mengonfirmasi sumber berita dalam hitungan detik tanpa perlu menunggu tim kami untuk merespons."

Khaled Attia, Head of Communications, Sanad at Al Jazeera