The standards

In early June of 2019, during the 3rd JTI Workshop at the EBU headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland), the registered participants unanimously adopted an official Standards document that defines indicators for trustworthy journalism. This document has been made public on July 3rd, whereas a public consultation is launched under the aegis of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN).

A draft of the CEN Workshop Agreement is available for download on the website of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN). It includes a list of criteria on transparency, professionalism and ethical conduct that JTI stakeholders considered essential best practices for media outlets to be trusted. In addition, the document provides a questionnaire translating the Standards clauses into a checklist, which is machine-readable in order to inform algorithmic distribution of news.

The set of standards, once published, could then pave the way for numerous non-for-profit and commercial actors to build audit and enforcement schemes around them. Accordingly, some of them, like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, have recently joined JTI to explore synergies of the ongoing efforts.