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(Mis)Information Lab Seminar

Empowering community leaders and educators across DC

Join the DC Public Library in collaboration with Truth in Common for our inaugural DC (Mis)information Lab Seminar: Empowering community leaders and educators across the District.

Here at the library, we're dedicated to building information literacy, and that includes countering misinformation that we hear about – from “deep fakes” of celebrities and politicians, to misleading or false health information spread on social media, to information that stokes fear, divisions, and violence.

We know that many DC-based organizations confront this issue as they go about serving DC’s diverse communities as educators, leaders, public health workers, social service providers and more.

In this dynamic one-day event, we'll forge connections among practitioners committed to combating misinformation and share promising practices. Get ready for hands-on learning, networking opportunities, and building a robust network to tackle misinformation head-on.

See the brief agenda for details.

Who should attend?
This seminar is designed with community leaders, educators, local journalists, and public-facing service providers in mind – anyone who is regularly looked to for authoritative information by DC residents. Do you often find yourself helping friends, neighbors, or clients find reliable information? Have you become familiar with the types of misinformation that tend to impact DC residents? Would you like to practice and refine your skills in dispelling misinformation? If so, this seminar is for you! Together we’ll build skills and community around helping DC residents find useful information about controversial and important topics.

What should I expect?
The purpose of this seminar is to share information and build skills collectively – be prepared to actively participate.  Expect to come away from the seminar with a deeper understanding of how misinformation circulates in our communities and workplaces, some ideas for how to combat it, concrete practice in productive dialog, and an expanded network of colleagues to work with on these issues moving forward.

To register

This seminar is free; Please register to secure your spot in shaping a more informed DC!

Featured Speakers

Deanna Troust is a communications professional whose career includes over 25 years in social change strategy development, executive leadership at a DC-based firm and two successful entrepreneurial ventures. She is founder of Truth in Common, which offers media and information literacy experiences at libraries and community-based organizations with a mission of restoring fact-based decisionmaking and respectful discourse. With projects in the District, Maryland, Virginia and beyond, Truth in Common empowers people to stem the spread of falsehoods and build community through an evidence-based approach. A graduate of Cornell University, Deanna is a long-time resident of Adams Morgan who also spends time in rural Worton, MD. Learn more at truthincommon.org.

Ethan Porter is an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science at George Washington University. He is also the Cluster Lead of the Misinformation/Disinformation Lab at GW's Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics. His research has appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Politics, Social Forces, Political Analysis, Political Behavior, Political Communication and other journals. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and other popular publications, and has received grant support from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council and the Omidyar Network. He is currently an associate editor at Science Advances. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago. 

False Alarm: The Truth About Political Mistruths in the Trump Era, a book co-authored with Thomas J. Wood, was published in 2019 by Cambridge University Press. His second book, The Consumer Citizen, was released in 2020 by Oxford University Press. 

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