Fake News, Why Labels Matter

Alex MacLeod
alexmacleod10@gmail.com

Photo from Playbuzz.com

Fake news is a dangerous term because it is discussed as if it has a concrete definition when it really means very different things to different people.  Donald Trump constantly uses this term on his social media.  CNN, New York Times and the Washington Post are just a few of the so-called fake news creators. His many supporters believe him, and consider many trustworthy news outlets to be "fake news."  They swear against these news outlets and only believe Fox news or what their Facebook friends post on their timelines.

News outlets make mistakes.  In most cases, these mistakes are rescinded, corrected and explained. Occasionally news outlets make big mistakes, and that is when trust is often lost with readers. Yet, this is a very rare occurrence, and when Trump supporters cite "fake news," I don't think that it's these occasions that they are referring to.

What is fake news?

For many of my peers in journalism school, fake news is a term that describes the made-up articles we see on FaceBook, the clickbait headlines from disreputable sources.  I think it is easy for most of us to discern these from actual news. That's not necessarily the case for the majority of the population.  They don't know the difference because they haven't been taught the difference.

The people that are most likely to take heed of President Trump's fake news warnings are the same ones who are the most likely to share news that is actually fake. A study by two Yale professors found that of the top 20 most shared false articles prior to the election, 17 were either pro-Trump or anti-Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump twisted the fake news conversation to suit himself, but stayed silent about his supporters mass consumption of fake news.  By calling anything that was against him fake, he flipped the narrative to suit himself.

Now when people discuss fake news, they are talking about two very different things. There's the clickbait, facebook, sensational news that is essentially completely dishonest, and then there is the news, that sometimes makes mistakes, but does its best to inform us and follows a code of ethics and honesty.

Is there a way to filter out the fake?

Not necessarily, traditional journalism has many protections in free speech.  These protections are necessary in order to maintain that our government doesn't get to hide things from us and so our people can stay informed.  In the age of digital, though, when anyone is able to be the media and create fake news, the people are being misinformed.

I don't necessarily think that there needs to be more regulations, but there definitely needs to be more education.  Large publications should produce more information on how to be internet-literate, why some publications are more reputable than others, and how most journalists follow a code of ethics.  I think if more people clicked headlines and actually read articles, checked where the information is coming from, and second-guessed whether what their reading is true, the fake news frenzy wouldn't be the problem that it is today.