Consistency v. Truth: Journalists have shifted their focus

By Silver Barker

sb230419@ohio.edu

Over the years, the media has changed, and so have the ethical decisions of many journalists. The term fake news is a widespread accusation that has caused several journalists to lose their credibility and, even for some, their job. In addition, continuously putting false information on the web has built tension between the people and recently stirred an uproar in the country during Trump's presidency. If providing false content to the public has led to all of these problems for our country and its people, why do journalists continue to do it?

Photo illustrated by Rodrigo de Matos 

Before the advancement of technology, old-fashioned journalists built trust with the people whose most significant values were reporting the truth and being accurate. Newspapers were delivered on a day-to-day basis, and there was no such thing as editing a newspaper once it was printed and sent to be mailed out. With this being said, journalists back then spent much more time checking their sources and fixing any errors before sending them into the world. They had time on their side, so there was no harm in doing a double-take. 

In today's world, news can spread with the click of a button due to our increasing number of platforms readily accessible to the public every second. New journalists have had a hard time keeping up with this technology in trying to publish content in today's consideration of a timely manner. With the rise in competition between different news outlets, there has been a shift in these old-fashioned journalist values that were once the most important. It seems that now, newsrooms are discovering the old-fashioned notion that credibility is as essential as speed. This newfound focus on speed in the industry has given accuracy a different light. Most news outlets are beginning to mix the truth with the false in their articles, with some information being accurate and some being false. Marc Fisher, the writer of the article Who cares if it's true states, "It's about finding the right middle point. Some degree of perfectionism turns out to be good for business, and absolute perfectionism can prevent great journalism from ever happening." 

Clickbait has been one of the most prominent influences upon this trend of fake news. While not all clickbait is false, most of it is intended to gain viewers and build an audience. Since clickbait has proven to be effective on a majority of the population, it is more common with newer organizations trying to get a headstart with this industry. Older organizations such as The Post value the old traditions of journalism, such as truth. This clickbait in newer organizations is not always meant to cause any harm, but the main reason for this false advertisement is economic motivation. Katharine Zaleski, the former executive producer at The Washington Post, shares her point of view on this controversial topic. "I learned at The Post how much patience it takes to get great journalism," Zaleski says. "At new organizations, you don't have the budget for that yet. Patience requires revenue," she adds. 

Additionally, fake news has surfaced more recently than ever due to the politically motivated news outlets that focus on presenting their audience with news that may favor their political stance, making it far more believable. According to Pew Research Center, 36% of Americans with political awareness correctly identified all factual statements in an article compared to about 17% with very little political awareness. Another research experiment concludes that when Democrats and Republicans were asked to confirm whether a statement saying "President Barack Obama was born in the United States" was true or false, 89% of Democrats correctly identified it. In comparison, 60% of Republicans were correct.

Overall, if journalists prevent losing trust with our people, new ways to balance these values between consistency and truth need to be found. For an industry that never sleeps, one mistake that goes overlooked can highly influence the public stances of our population.