CBS News Hires Rhona Tarrant As Executive Editor Of New Verification And Fact-Checking Initiative

CBS News has hired Rhona Tarrant to serve as executive editor of CBS News Confirmed, its new verification and fact-checking initiative.

Tarrant, who will start on April 1, has worked with the Google News Initiative and Storyful to train journalists on identifying misinformation and disinformation. She will report to Claudia Milne, senior vice president for CBS News and Stations and head of standards and practices.

The network announced CBS News Confirmed last year as a venture to identify IA generated deepfakes and misinformation. Journalists in the unit use data and technology to verify and fact-check videos and reports.

In a statement, Milne called Tarrant “one of the leading journalists and editors in the world working in and breaking new ground in the area of verifying information.”

Tarrant said that the “rise of generative AI and online misinformation has made the role of journalists more critical than ever.”

Tarrant built a team of a dozen journalists at Storyful who verified social media footage for a newswire that served major publications and media outlets. She oversaw all editorial output in North America and set standards and protocols for open-source investigations and visual verification. She also researched disinformation and AI during two Berkman Klein Center fellowships at Harvard University in 2020 and 2021. She previously worked at WNYC Radio in New York and at RTÉ Radio and Television in Dublin.