Fake news – The post-truth needle has moved – Now what?

Post-election public awareness of the depth and breadth of fake news is growing by the hour. The recent BuzzFeed blast (https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/the-strangest-fake-news-empire?utm_term=.gmdrXdGXg#.oc7BJQpJw) brings the pernicious practice into the daily lives of masses of the general public are just now feeling the pain.

If there is any hope it lies in the fact that the explosion sparks a flicker of hope that the current torrent of public awareness may lead to action – including a heightened level of “perceptive paranoia” among news consumers. For now, the communities bamboozled by the false claims of high profile neighbors-to-be are injured, insulted and enraged.

Meanwhile, in the journalistic background action steps are underway: For starts, there is increased respect — not to mention expanding career opportunities — for fact checkers such as the truth-seekers at Ballotpedia (http:ballotpedia.org), Annenberg’s (http://www.factcheck.org), Politifact (http://www.politifact.com), the Poynter Institute (http://www.poynter.org) to name just a few. Fact checkers can’t change the original but they can inform perceptive individuals to the incipient dangers of the misinformation and disinformation.

Understandably, serious journalists are seriously exorcised.   Members of the press, appropriately outraged, have spoken out in multiple ways. These are but a few of the published critiques based on the fake news story:

• On the issue of consumers recognizing the devastating impact of fake news, the Pew Research Center published a recent post-election article: http://www.journalism.org/2016/12/15/many-americans-believe-fake-news-is-sowing-confusion/ The study has been widely reported reproduced and presumably read.

• And then there is the push back, e.g. Tom Basile’s piece in Forbes, “The real fake new is the mainstream  media”http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbasile/2016/12/12/

• Right-Wing Media Are Using the Term ‘Fake News’ to Attack Credible News Sources – http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/12/09/right-wing-media-using-term-fake-news-attack-credible-news-sources/214778

• Bob Collins posted a suggested antidote on MPR’s NewsCut — http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2016/11/the-antidote-for-fake-news-better-journalism/

• Former communications director for Dan Quayle, Jeff Nesbit, echoed Collins’ thoughts in Time Magazine – http://time.com/4605146/fake-news-antidote/

• At least one commentator has the temerity to note that FB is not the sole perpetrator of fakery http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2016/11/the_problem_with_facebook_runs_much_deeper_than_fake_news.html.
• Another critic has pointed out that subscribers’ clicks to check on the validity of a FB fake fact add to the FB traffic boost!

In the parlance of the media mavens, the “needle has moved” on fake news. We are well in the Post-Truth Era.   In our own good time the American public has heard the poet’s message – today, fake news IS the news.

We have a public disinformation epidemic that is spreading like a vicious virus through the communications channels – formal and informal – of this democracy.  The true fact is that we have a preliminary, if not universal, diagnosis.

With all due respect for The Bard: The fault, dear Readers, lies not in the stars but in ourselves.”

Another good read:  http://www.cjr.org/tow_center/mobile_notifications_changing_new_york_times.php?utm_source=Pew

 

The truth remains — the fault lies in ourselves

“I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments which one has to use later directly in life. The demands of life are much too manifold to let such a specialized training in school appear possible […] The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgement should always be placed foremost.” ― Albert Einstein

Fake news is not a fad. Fake facts are pernicious seeds planted with malicious care in the fertile minds of individuals ill-equipped to resist the implicit threat.

Individually and institutionally – I would argue in the latter case it’s intentionally – we have neither the skills nor the will to make the effort to examine the facts behind the facade. We have enabled ourselves and our society to become pawns, preyed upon in a game in which we are payers but not players.

Right now we are in a quick fix mode – eager to leave it to others – e.g. Mark Zuckerberg and his tribe – to label, limit, post warning signs or otherwise save us from ourselves. In other words, to put the fox in charge of the chicken coop, or the decider-in-chief the host of the technology titans.

As usual, Shakespeare got it right: “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves.”

Pope Francis picked up on Shakespeare’s thought with his observation that spreading fake news is a sin… http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2016/1208/Why-Pope-Francis-says-fake-news-is-a-sin

Misinformation and disinformation have always lurked on the fringes of fact. Stephen Colbert called it “truthiness.”  Technology spreads the virus. Finances raise fake disinformation to an art, packaging the prevarications in irresistible 140 character snippets, almost authentic press releases, and bulletin bursts designed to capture the press, the untrained newsy or the digital gossip. So now the word of the year is “post-truth.” (I would have called that a phrase.)

And still, we point the public finger at fake news – the pernicious power, the packaging, the source of the lies. We ignore the fact that the fault lies not only in the intentional lies but in ourselves.

Public awareness offers us an unprecedented opportunity to grapple with the reality that we as citizens of a democracy share the civic and moral imperative to hone –and pass on — the skills and habits essential to this information age.

The time is now to focus on the missing link* in the information chain – The starting point has to be our admission that “the fault lies not with the stars but in ourselves.”

* See earlier post: https://marytreacy.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/information-literacy-universal-challenge-of-the-digital-era/