by Thomas E. Patterson, The Journalist's Resource October 27, 2020 h1 Election Beat 2020: How news outlets become misinformation superspreaders /h1 p class "byline" by Thomas E. Patterson, The Journalist's Resource br October 27, 2020 /p p Russia is again peddling misinformation in an attempt to upend our election. It’s an important news story, but there’s a larger threat that’s getting less coverage. In a New York University Stern School a href "https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/april/tackling-domestic-disinformation--what-the-social-media-companie.html" study /a , Paul Barrett shows that Russia’s contribution to our misinformation problem is nearly a distraction compared with what Americans themselves are providing. An a href "https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/93/2018/11/marchal_et_al.pdf" Oxford University study of Facebook and Twitter shares during the 2018 midterm election /a reached the same conclusion, finding that a full fourth of the messages contained deceptive or inaccurate information -- most of it homegrown. /p