Use the FWEF method for correcting lies. This stands for Fact-Warn-Explain-Fact. Lead with the truth. Warn the audience they’re about to hear a lie. Explain how the lie misleads. Then restate the truth—multiple times if you can. The structure matters because people remember what they hear most often, and if you spend more time repeating the lie than the correction, you’ve just helped spread the misinformation.

Stop with the false balance. If you’re going to platform “both sides,” show the actual distribution of opinion. Don’t present it as 50-50 when it’s really “90 climate scientists say this policy would be disastrous and one guy from a think tank disagrees.” The audience deserves to know where the weight of expertise actually lies.

Quantify instead of dramatizing. Replace “political kerfuffle” with “a dozen members of Congress criticized.” Replace “growing calls for” with the actual number of people calling for something. Vague language inflates the importance of things that might not actually be important. Numbers keep everyone honest.

Keep interviews tight. One or two topics, persistent follow-ups. Don’t let someone dodge a question by pivoting to five other subjects. This is about not letting them “flood the zone” with claims you can’t possibly fact-check in real time. Pin them down.

Protect the right of reply, but don’t let it become a propaganda vehicle. If someone responds to your story with a statement full of lies and irrelevant attacks, you can cut those parts. Right of reply doesn’t mean you have to print whatever nonsense they send you. Add your own corrections where needed.

These techniques don’t cost money. They don’t require some radical reimagining of journalism. They just require thinking about coverage differently and being willing to break from the both-sides muscle memory that’s been drilled into journalists for decades.