Craig Silverman — 2018 Carey McWilliams Award Recipient

The American Political Science Association (APSA) will present the Carey McWilliams Award to Craig Silverman at the 2018 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition, the world’s largest gathering of political scientists and source for emerging scholarship in the discipline. The $750 award recognizes major journalistic contributions to the understanding of politics.   

Craig Silverman is an award-winning author and journalist and one of the world’s leading experts on online misinformation, fake news, and content verification. He is the media editor of BuzzFeed News where he leads a global beat covering platforms, online misinformation, and media manipulation.

Craig previously was the founding editor of BuzzFeed Canada, and was also the founder of Emergent.info, a rumor tracking project that was developed as part of a research fellowship with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. His research resulted in the publication of “Lies, Damn Lies, and Viral Content: How News Websites Spread (and Debunk) Online Rumors, Unverified Claims and Misinformation.” From 2004 to 2015 he wrote Regret The Error, a blog about media accuracy and corrections, which became part of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and was the basis for an award-winning book of the same name.

In 2010, Craig was part of the team that launched OpenFile, an online news startup the delivered community-driven reporting in six Canadian cities. He is the former managing editor of PBS MediaShift and has been a columnist for The Globe And Mail, Toronto Star, and Columbia Journalism Review. Craig also edited The Verification Handbook and The Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting for the European Journalism Centre, and is also the author of the award-winning book “Mafiaboy.”

Craig was named to the Politico 50 for his work exposing fake news and its effect on American politics. His journalism and books have been honored by the Mirror Awards, U.S. National Press Club, National Magazine Awards (Canada), Digital Publishing Awards, and Crime Writers of Canada.

Craig Silverman, Media Editor for Buzzfeed News, is the American Political Science Association’s 2018 Carey McWilliams Award Winner. As democracies wrestle with disinformation, Silverman’s reporting has been important in illuminating the issues at the crux of the crisis in journalism. His work not only highlights some of the most pressing issues in social and political science with respect to news and democracy but has also often helped set the agenda for researchers rather than the other way around. By integrating data analysis and investigative reporting, Silverman exemplifies journalism in this complex era at its best. Further, in publicly articulating concerns over the role he played in popularizing the term “fake news,” he also displays the intellectual forthrightness central to a McWilliams recipient.