By Emme Bowe
eb730819@ohio.edu
Political cartoon by Nate Beeler, award-winning editorial cartoonist for the Columbus Dispatch
Fake news has been a part of history long before social media and clickbait, despite becoming a hot-button word during the Trump presidency. Before conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and fabricated stories such as the Pope endorsing Trump, there are instances of fake news dating back to the Roman Republic's civil war. However, modern fake news is much more dangerous than the Roman empire because of the speed at which it is spread, the difficulty to retract false information, and the distrust in the media that makes it harder for the public to accept facts and distinguish those facts from fiction.
Most people in America have a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction. According to a Pew Research study in which participants were asked to distinguish between five factual statements and five opinion statements, 26% of American adults could correctly identify all five factual statements. Only 35% of American adults could correctly identify all five opinion statements.
The inability for Americans to find the truth can have severe repercussions in media perception, political outcomes, and general social influence. If the people cannot find the truth, how can they ever form genuine personal opinions or make reasonable decisions? How can people ever trust the media again if they cannot separate the good from the wrong sources?
Solving the news media literacy issue in America is a step towards uncovering the truth and encouraging news outlets to only provide the truth. However, if the public develops a no-tolerance policy for anything but the truth, media agencies will have to give them honesty and accuracy to survive.
The public should not have to carry this burden of becoming fact-checkers. Journalists follow their ethical code and obtain the highest journalistic quality in an ideal world. That is because their brains would be wired differently than other humans to be without bias, and they would certainly never write anything with the intention of deceiving the public. Unfortunately, while journalists have to be accurate and report against their assumptions, we do not live in this ideal world. Some journalists with bad intentions and social media exemplify the problem through algorithms that boost misinformation. As a result, finding the truth can seem nearly impossible.
So how does one find the truth in an echo chamber of one-sidedness, misinformation, and fake news? Here are some ways to determine the difference between factual and fake media.
1. Avoid headline skimming: Headlines rarely tell the whole story and are often dramatized to increase page traffic. Instead, read the full article before making assumptions about a topic.
2. Find other voices: Check to see if other outlets are reporting on the story and compare the facts included and omitted from each source. Piecing together consistencies across multiple platforms will help determine what is true. Also, consider any relevant perspectives that did not include in the story try to seek out these underrepresented perspectives to get a fuller picture of the events that occurred.
3. Who is the source, and who are they citing?: Is the story from an accredited newspaper or a stranger on Facebook? Does the website end in a familiar domain name such as ".org" or an unusual domain name? If the source is unfamiliar, do some research on the website or author to discover their reputation, professional experience, and possible biases. Also, check the sources cited in the article to see if they acquired accurate and trustworthy.
4. If you know it's fake, do not engage: Social Media algorithms reinforce personal beliefs by showing content similar to what the user interacts with. This media echo chamber where only one side of a story is present makes it difficult to believe the information given is anything but the truth. In addition, any liking, sharing, or commenting on a post will boost it to other users, so interacting with misinformation amplifies its presence.
Fake news and misinformation do not seem to be going away any time soon. Still, with the right tools, the public can take back the power by boosting the truth and disengaging with any sensationalism or fabrication. It is up to us to find the truth in this era of misinformation.
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