Let's get rid of the term "fake news" and call it what it really is: false information, poor reporting, lack of accountability.
Trump has turned "fake news" into a crusade against journalists, calling the media "dishonest, terrible people."
Journalists certainly play a part, but there are many other factors to consider. Our current media environment isn't simply the result of a few deviant journalists.
User-Generated Content
While there are truly awful journalists out there, the media is not the only contributor to the problem and prevalence of false news. In an era of user-generated content and social media, anyone can share just about anything.
Before the creation and popularization of user-generated content, news and information was filtered through a curator or editor before it reached the public. Now, anyone with access to the internet can publish anything in an instant, with or without evidence or support.
While user-generated content does have its benefits, it can produce rumors and cause false information to go viral. This can be detrimental to the trustworthiness of available information and the ways in which it's represented.
User-generated content makes it more difficult to identify the truth.
Proliferation of False Information
Social media is another major contributor to false information.
During the 2016 election, for example, the top 20 false news stories had more engagements than the top 20 hard news stories.
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Additionally, a 2017 study by NYU and Stanford researchers found that over 40 percent of visits to 65 false news sites came from social media, while only 10 percent of visits to 690 top U.S. news sites came from social media.
Inaccurate stories and statistics are easy to share on social media, and many people don't even take the time to read full stories before sharing. This issue and its pervasiveness on social media leads to the perpetuation of false information.
The Need for Better Reporting
User-generated content and social media aside, journalists aren't without blame. As said in nearly every ethics code out there, with some minor variations in phrasing, journalists must seek and report the truth.
Journalists can and need to do better. We must check and recheck sources, pursue the full story, use caution when publishing anonymous sources, consider sources' motivations and most of importantly, stay true to our ethics.
There is no excuse for poor journalism, and we surely can't afford it in this day and age. It's as essential now as ever to take full responsibility for our work, its accuracy and how we represent the information.
We All Have a Duty
We all consume media, therefore, we all have to be more conscious of our interactions with media. Every person has a role in the fight against false information. None of us are immune.
We both produce and consume media. As journalists, we must do our best to provide only the most accurate information and to limit the dissemination of false information. As members of the public and consumer of media, we must do our due diligence as we continue to consume news and information. We need to be more conscious in our consumption. This means taking no opinions for truth, seeking multiple sources and fully digesting what we consume before sharing it with others.
Going forward, it's of the utmost importance the we carefully consider everything we read, write or share.
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