- Washington Free Beacon - https://freebeacon.com -

Facebook Starting Journalism Project to Improve Relationship With Media

Facebook is launching a journalism project aimed at forging closer relationships with news organizations in a step toward becoming more involved in content management for the site.

The social media platform announced the proposal Wednesday that includes providing users with "trustworthy" information and training audiences in "news literacy" to better identify fake news.

Facebook also pledged to collaborate with publishers to develop tools to improve storytelling formats that will show up in users' news feeds. One feature the site plans to test uses Instant Articles that will allow users to view multiple stories at once from their favored news organizations.

The company also said it would work directly with journalists to teach them how to search its site to better distribute news and engage with readers.

The initiative is Facebook's most explicit pivot toward involving itself in the distribution of media for its 1.8 billion monthly users. It is set to begin in the coming weeks in partnership with publishers including Fox News and the Washington Post.

The company has faced criticism for failing to counteract the spread of false political stories during the U.S. presidential election.

In a blog post last month, the site announced it would mount an effort to censor "fake news" and hoaxes on its newsfeed in an effort to help mitigate the spread of misinformation across the internet.