U.S. Ethnic and Indigenous Media Play Critical Role in Countering Disinformation, New ICFJ Study Finds

By: ICFJ | 10/01/2025

While political disinformation is surging across the United States, one part of the news media is proving especially resilient in stopping the spread of false information – ethnic and Indigenous newsrooms, according to a new study by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).

“Thanks to their deep community ties and well-established credibility, ethnic newsrooms are often attuned to harmful rumors and falsehoods circulating within their communities well before those narratives manage to garner national attention,” the study concluded. The report was edited by ICFJ’s Julie Posetti, Nabeelah Shabbir and Kaylee Williams.

It is the second report published in a five-country study funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation as part of ICFJ’s Disarming Disinformation project and is based on research produced in collaboration with Arizona State University and the University of Maryland.

 

Read the Report



The research was conducted during the 2024 U.S. presidential election period and focused on Asian American, Black, Indigenous and Latino news outlets. The researchers conducted 42 in-depth interviews and analyzed over 500 articles and 300 social media posts published by 45 outlets.

To complement these qualitative approaches, the researchers employed artificial intelligence, using large language models (LLMs) to analyze the narratives of nearly 10,000 articles, enabling the systematic identification of recurring topics, narratives and disinformation patterns. Finally, the researchers surveyed American adults across the nation to assess their attitudes toward disinformation, the press and its democratic functions.

These methods were combined in an effort to better understand both the unique challenges ethnic outlets face related to disinformation, as well as the ways they responded to false and misleading narratives during the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

At a time when independent media are under pressure and the Trump administration is working to undermine independent journalism, the study points to practical, community-rooted strategies for combatting disinformation that target vulnerable communities. One interviewee from a Black-focused outlet told researchers: “People know us. They believe us. And that’s something a lot of newsrooms can’t say anymore.”

Key findings from the study include:

 

  • U.S. President Donald Trump was the dominant source and distributor of disinformation appearing in the ethnic and Indigenous press during the 2024 election, according to the research. This highlights the function of domestic political forces, rather than foreign state actors, as the primary source of disinformation in U.S. political discourse.
  • WhatsApp groups, WeChat channels and other closed digital spaces often act as “information cocoons” for mono-linguistic communities, allowing rumors and other forms of disinformation to spread unabated. Ethnic outlets respond to this challenge by monitoring those spaces, engaging directly with users in their language and publishing timely, contextualized reporting that addresses specific claims.
  • Community engagement doubles as a shield against disinformation. Many of the journalists interviewed for the study pointed to innovative approaches in storytelling and journalistic inquiry as ways to surface community concerns early, fact-check rumors where they spread and turn verified facts into practical guidance – through town halls, bilingual explainers and reporting on the platforms most used by audiences.
  • Ethnic outlets disagree whether traditional conceptions of journalistic objectivity are useful in the fight against disinformation, with some emphasizing partisan neutrality as essential to earning trust and defusing rumors, and others arguing that rigid “bothsidesism” often obscures the truth and inadvertently launders harmful narratives.
  • Financial scams are a persistent, cross-community threat, and many research subjects report that scams often travel through the same channels as political falsehoods.
  • Trust in the mainstream press continues to decline in a climate of increasing attacks on the press. But our survey revealed that participants identifying as people of color (POC) were less likely to actively ‘distrust’ the press, with 32% of POC participants expressing distrust in the news, compared to 44% of white-identifying participants.
  • The exclusion or willful omission of Indigenous community voices in public discourse, including through mainstream media coverage, feeds disinformation and fuels racist narratives. Indigenous journalists described a tendency by the mainstream press to only cover Indigenous issues or people in moments of tragedy or destitution, effectively erasing the everyday experiences and agency of their communities from public awareness and political discourse.
  • While many outlets are well positioned to counter falsehoods within their respective audiences, the study also identified areas for improvement. For example, the researchers found some instances of uncritical repetition of disinformation narratives among some members of the Latino press; and interviews with some Chinese publications raised concerns about editorial independence from foreign influence.

You can read the full set of findings and recommendations in the Disarming Disinformation: United States report, which is available here. Learn more about our Disarming Disinformation research here.

DISCLAIMER: Primary funding for this research was received from the Scripps Howard Foundation as part of ICFJ's Disarming Disinformation project, with additional support provided by the Gates Foundation.

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