News coverage from April 2025 about the Center for an Informed Public and CIP-affiliated research and researchers.
- National Public Radio (April 7, 2025): “How a false X post about pausing tariffs led to multitrillion-dollar market swings”
CIP co-founder Kate Starbird was interviewed by NPR for a story about how a false claim shared on X led to major volatility in the stock market. “Our social media systems — and X in particular — are designed in such a way that rumors spread extremely quickly, while corrections lag far behind. Verification is challenging (and slow), in part because it’s often hard to determine the original source of a particular claim.”
***
- The Seattle Times (April 14, 2025): “Political scientists find submission to Trump ‘shocking,’ says UW prof”
Seattle Times columnist Naomi Ishisaka interviewed CIP faculty member Scott Radnitz, a UW Jackson School for International Studies professor, for a column. “In the sense that the Trump administration is seeking to act without constraints, is seeking to bulldoze over existing democratic norms and it claims not to recognize checks on its power, I would say that’s the definition of authoritarian,” he said.
***
- Reader’s Digest (April 17, 2025): “Misinformation vs. disinformation: How to tell the difference”
Reader’s Digest cited insights CIP co-founder Jevin West shared at the University of Colorado’s 2022 Conference on World Affairs, who said “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
***
- National Public Radio (April 17, 2025): “How Elon Musk’s favorite news influencer is capitalizing on his clout”
CIP postdoctoral scholar Mert Can Bayar was interviewed by NPR about CIP research examining influential “newsbroker” accounts on X. “It’s a paradise for [the news brokers] because they don’t do any screening,” Bayar said. “So they can tweet a lot of things in 10 minutes.”
***
- Nieman Lab (April 21, 2025): “National Science Foundation cancels research grants related to misinformation and disinformation”
Nieman Lab featured comments from CIP co-founder Kate Starbird regarding the impacts of the National Science Foundation’s decisions to cancel numerous federal funding grants for research. “The NSF has been particularly helpful for launching new programs studying online misinformation and adjacent topics at the intersection of technology design and information integrity, for supporting development of research infrastructure, and for helping to forge collaborations across institutions,” Starbird said.
***
- KUOW Public Radio (April 21, 2025): “As Trump cuts funding, researchers look for opportunities outside the U.S.”
CIP faculty member Carl Bergstrom was featured in a KUOW Public Radio interview about the impacts of the cancellation of federal grants for research.
***
- The Washington Post (April 28, 2025): “Fake movie trailers were an art form. Then came the AI slop.”
CIP co-founder Jevin West was interviewed by The Washington Post for an article about AI slop and fake movie trailers that included tips for spotting manipulated media in trailers. “It doesn’t matter if 99.999% of them never stick. All you need is one to really take off,” West said.
***
- RBTE (April 30, 2025): “Fan de jeux vidéo, narcissique et part sombre… Ce que X nous apprend d’Elon Musk”
CIP postdoctoral scholar Mert Can Bayar was interviewed about newsbroker accounts for an investigative news article organized by a coalition of French language news organizations in Belgium and France.
