Alex Cole On Combatting Disinformation

Achieve Great Things

Dealing with disinformation tops the agenda for all kinds of organizations working on all kinds of issues. We’re bombarded by fake news, foreign propaganda, consumer scams and other kinds of deliberate disinformation that make it hard to sort out fact from fiction. Alex Cole has been on the frontlines of information wars around the world. He says America is “under a disinformation assault from within and outside our borders.” The “urgency to counter this threat can’t be overstated.” And “convenient solutions” are hard to find. Alex is Vice President of External Affairs at Internews, an international nonprofit that believes “everyone deserves trustworthy news and information.” Internews has 30 offices worldwide and supports independent media in 100 countries, reaching millions of people with information they can trust. At the global nonprofit IREX, he helped organizations in Ukraine and other countries fight back against the onslaught of disinformation from the Putin regime in Russia. On this episode of Achieve Great Things, we’ll talk about real solutions—practical steps your organization can take to fight one of the most important challenges facing the field of communications—and democracy itself.