Quartz announces four-person investigations team

A new investigations team at financial news site Quartz is expected to produce high-impact, accountability journalism supported by audience participation and machine learning, reports editor in chief Kevin Delaney.

Delaney writes, “Four Quartz journalists will tackle one issue at a time, drawing on our unique background and global experience reporting on business structures, practices, and incentives to hold public and private institutions accountable for their choices and their use of power. The team includes machine-learning journalist Jeremy B. Merrill and two additional roles, for which we’re accepting internal and external applicants. John Keefe, who has led the Quartz AI Studio, will lead the team as investigations editor.

“Our first focus: online political influence.

“Specifically, we will investigate and expose coordinated efforts to sway, confuse, and divide the US electorate ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

“This is an open investigation, and we need your help monitoring the campaigns, companies, governments, and other actors involved in those efforts. What are you seeing in your social media feeds? Who is trying to get you to vote, and how? Have you seen efforts to divide, mislead, mobilize, or agitate people? Are you involved in research into online influence? Do you work at an advertising or social media company?”

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