There’s a thread in 20 Days in Mariupol, a documentary Frontline and the Associated Press released this year, that offers a model for carrying out the sort of fair, vetted, fact-based journalism that’s necessary to combat mis- and disinformation.

First, we watch as AP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and his colleagues — who would become the last international journalists reporting from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol as Russian troops attacked — shelter in the entryway to a building. Mstyslav films as a series of nearby booms shake the ground, set off shock waves and car alarms, and send plumes of smoke into the air. He films as he and his AP colleagues, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko, run towards the building hit.

What they documented at the site of that March 9, 2022, bombing, and sent out to their editors — a destroyed maternity hospital, panicked and distraught mothers and children, a grievously wounded pregnant woman on a stretcher — would stun the world.

As we see in the documentary, though, it also sparked a wave of claims from Russian officials and news outlets: The attack was actually “a fully staged provocation,” featuring crisis actors. The hospital had previously been seized by Ukrainian “radicals.” “All the pregnant women, all the nurses, all the service personnel were already expelled from there,” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said.

What Mstyslav captured that day showed otherwise. But Mstyslav and his editors didn’t stop there. As the documentary unfolds, we watch as Mstyslav races to confirm and report further details — including what happened to the pregnant woman on the stretcher. Following a boots-on-the-ground, shoe-leather reporting process, Mstyslav tracks down a doctor who tried to save her and learns that the woman, Iryna, died.

“Her injuries were incompatible with life,” the doctor tells him. “The pelvis was completely shattered and there was significant blood loss. We did everything we could. But we were unable to save her. The woman died. The baby also died in the womb.”

Mstyslav also tracks down other survivors, including one woman who lost part of her foot in the bombing, and had just given birth when Mstyslav found her.

This reporting shows the remarkable value of a journalist being in the field, in communication with skilled editors — able to methodically verify facts and dispel mis- and disinformation, beyond any reasonable doubt.

In the year to come, the need for this type of on-the-ground, vetted, fact-based reporting — and the editorial process underpinning it — will grow. So will the hunger for it, especially among members of Gen Z, as they try to make sense of the information they’re being targeted with on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and figure out what’s true.

But this kind of rigorous, process-based journalism requires deep resources. It involves trained reporters and trained editors, and a commitment to getting it right rather than being first. My hope — my plea — is that in the next year and beyond, our industry will find the financial sustainability to meet this moment and to sustain and grow this kind of journalism at the local, national, and international levels.

On that front, the trends are not entirely optimistic. We’ve seen another year of deep layoffs across the industry. But we’ve also seen the launch of promising initiatives like Press Forward, aimed at supporting journalism in a time when it’s needed more than ever. In the year ahead, when I feel despair, I’ll think about the reporting process on display in 20 Days in Mariupol, how we can apply it in future instances of mis- and disinformation, and what a Ukrainian policeman told Mstyslav in the documentary: “Guys, your reporting spread. You did a big thing. Otherwise, no one would know what happened.”