Ever heard of fake news?

Hannah Miller
hm491514@ohio.edu

To everyone who did not live under a rock during the 2016 presidential election, you've heard of fake news. Fake news began making it's way across the country, and seemed to hit everyone and everything in it's path.

This is not the first time fake news has shown up in the media. Although the use of social media has changed the game. With Twitter and Facebook, it's never been easier to spread your thoughts and opinions. Unfortunately, when disguised as facts it's easy to confuse the average reader scrolling through their feed.

From erininflight.wordpress.com

People are attracted to sensationalism. When they hear something dramatic or out-of-the ordinary, they want it to be true. The drama with the presidential election formed the perfect base for people to mix up the stories a bit and try and make people see their side.

It's also important to realize that sensationalism is not a new concept. In an article written for Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, it was written that George Taber, former business editor for Times Magazine, said "sensationalism in journalism has existed from the early days of the printing press in the 16th century".

As soon as one person reposts a story with an eye-catching title, it causes a whirlwind affect and a lot of the time the stories will go viral. A person almost always believes the story to be true when it comes from a reliable source (depending on the person, the source could even just be a friend) because why would a good source lie?

Tim Cigelske for Media Shift wrote about how sensationalism in the media is more apparent than ever and how it is making it easier for publishers to get the engagement they're after.

So what does fake news and sensationalism do to the ethical journalist? It decreases their reliability.

With the use of social networks, anyone can be a journalist. It's easy to get your word out in the world and on the feeds of millions of people. But fake news is making it harder for real, ethical journalists to look professional.

You can also find many trustworthy news sites posting news that is later found out to be false. Can you imagine what that does for the entire organization's image? It shows that fact checking is no longer as important as it used to be.

Personally, I was always taught to fact check with the bare minimum of two other reliable sources, but it seems some journalists are getting a bit lazy these days and are doing anything to get their byline out there.

Even then, people have been throwing around the words "fake news" and "fact-check" so much lately, it's hard to tell when it's being used correctly.

Mark Stencel wrote that "fact-checks have become new weapons on the political battlefield -- used as shields or clubs in campaign ads, stump speeches and debates".

With sensationalism, fake news and fact-checking (oh my) it's hard to put as much trust in the media as people once did. Ethical journalists will always be out there, but for now you may want to do some research yourself before you retweet that viral story.