Losing a Voice of Reason: Navigating the Fake News Crisis

Alexis McCurdy
am447915@ohio.edu

People love drama. People love scandal. With such love and passion, comes the urge to divulge in the errors of others. It's almost a form of bonding among the human race; it's the evergreen concept of watercooler talk.

Gradual whispers of "did you hear about this?" are becoming louder as information continues to inundate the internet. However, they are whispers of nothingness. There are no facts to back up claims, just a hollow anthem.

In a recent epidemic, the United States lived through this scenario repeatedly as the country's citizens and reporters tackled the issue of fake news.

The cause of fake news can easily be the fault of both sides. It may be the reader's fault for not doing thorough research. But it also may be the journalists' fault for not making information credible enough.

Humans have a high tendency to support facts that align with their worldview, and reject those that do not. In result, although journalists may not be explicitly supporting a topic, their choice in topics can lead to biased coverage. For example, many times left-leaning news outlets will choose more progressive issues to cover. Or vice-versa, right-leaning news outlets will choose more conservative issues to cover and gather quotes that only support their ideals.

This leads to audiences receiving lack of an objective story that tells both sides and additionally prohibits them to interpret information for themselves. It rather interprets the information for them. This decision in biased crafting pushes audiences away from a story that does not support their ideals, and then pushes them toward one that does. In result, readers develop a sort of brand loyalty to certain news organizations,digesting everything they read or hear as pure fact.

This can be dangerous, especially when other "news outlets" began to pop up that closely resemble the news organizations people trust. If readers come across an article from an outlet they do not know is fake, they are susceptible to believe the facts within it if closely resembles what they've already been reading. This is strongly due to the lack the proper tools readers possess to discern for themselves what is true and false.

If someone's only been digesting one type of food all their life, can they suddenly digest and tolerate a new food introduced to them?The answer is no; they stick to what they know is safe to them, even though it might not be the best for them.

Moreover, with the surge of sensationalized journalism used to garner clicks to make up for the loss in monetary value of the craft, audiences are receiving very dramatized, and sometimes false, story accounts that may further impair their ability to tell real news from fake news. Readers began to gloss over headlines and assume the whole story.

This issue can be seen in correlation with the rise of Facebook "news" pages. According to a Buzzfeed analysis, right-wing Facebook pages published false information 38 percent of the time during the 2016 election, and left-wing did so 20 percent of the time.

If it seems as though those numbers shouldn't be hurting anyone too much, a Stanford University study revealed that in a survey of over 7,000 students from middle school to college, 80 percent had difficulty discerning real from fake news.

This evidence throws out the question that people fall susceptible to fake news simply because they are dumb. Believing in false news is something anybody is capable of. And any journalist is capable of creating it if they do not began to care about their audience's needs. One of the fundamental responsibilities of a journalist is to seek truth, report it and provide the public with information that is vital to them.

"The challenge of the coming years will be to reinvigorate the public purpose of journalism and to assist media to reconnect with citizens more effectively," said writer Aidan White in his piece about the fake news era. "This existential crisis requires, above all, for journalists to recommit to their craft with reporting that reaches out to their audience and listens to what is being said and reports it in context."

If the democratic society of the U.S. is going to continue to work, audiences need to be well-informed and apt to make decisions. They need to find their voice of reason again. There's no doubt that journalists can help them do so. The media is one of the most influential entities in society; the change starts with them.