The Effect Fake News Has on COVID-19

Larissa Beriswill

lb657516@ohio.edu 

 

The world completely changed when COVID-19 started spreading globally. Borders were closed, schools were closing rapidly and most importantly, people began to be infected and started losing their lives. Although we want to depend on the news and social media for everything, it's important to take it with a grain of salt. Is the information that we were reading at the height of the pandemic even true? 

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It's hard to know what the truth is and what isn't when numbers and statistics are involved, simply because we look to the news for those exact facts. What's not difficult is looking at the credibility of the source posting those statistics. If fake news is going to become more common as time goes on, news consumers have to be able to know how to verify a news source.

According to this article from Deutsche Welle, there were 800 deaths in relation to the misinformation of COVID-19. The article also states there was a study conducted and the results has shown that roughly 800 people died from drinking concentrated alcohol to cleanse their body of any bacteria or germs. Additionally, the false information on Indian social media caused citizens to consume cow feces in order to prevent infection. 

Simply educating citizens to realize what is fake news and what is not is crucial for the future. People have lost their lives due to reading fake information online. It's at their own discretion to go through with consuming methanol or cow feces, nonetheless. It's not worth human lives to put out information that is simply false.

Moreover, there was a study done by The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene that studied different reports among many different countries to see the results of factual information present. The results showed that there were "2,311 reports related to COVID-19 infodemic in 25 languages from 87 countries." "Of these, 2,049 (89%) of the reports were classified as rumors, 182 (7.8%) were conspiracy theories, and 82 (3.5%) were stigma."

The amount of reports that are rumors, conspiracy theories and stigma is not beneficial for anyone, especially in the time of this pandemic. As future journalists, we know what is ethical for the public. Publishing articles with anything other than the truth is not ethical, nor is it beneficial for us as journalists, for our news outlets or the public. 

Fake news will only continue to be an issue in the world. It's our job to educate news consumers and to be ethical when reporting on such things as a pandemic; where numbers and statistics are important. The public looks to the news for information and we need to deliver that to them.