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Virginia Capitol Connections, Spring 2017
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I met Mimi Merritt as a freshman in her journalism class.
But even as a competitive and ambitious eighteen year old,
I found myself thwarted— I consistently failed her current
events quizzes. Who has time for the news? I asked myself;
ironic, though it was that a journalism major would be asking
the question. Eventually, her consistent push revealed the
answer: we all must.
But today, it is not enough to merely read news. With
the rising motivation to publish sensational stories that draw
readers to advertisement, a market for fake news has been
born. Merritt has stepped forward, recognizing that we have
embarked upon compromised territory. Her advocacy for
critical reading in order to distinguish fact from fiction takes
me back to the lesson I began learning as a naive journalism
student. Who has time for this? The answer is the same: we
all must. By Lydia Freeman
I decided seven years ago that as a
communications professor in the 21st
century, it was time to try Facebook. I was
a dinosaur, trying to communicate with
students through emails they no longer read.
Receiving the first “like” to a posted
status was empowering, and soon I was
exploring timelines and photographs,
reconnecting with old friends and distant cousins. The magic of
instant communication was addictive.
The menacing side of social media, however, darkened my
newsfeed. Cheerful birthday wishes and random epiphanies
alternated with memes that oversimplified complex social
issues and distorted historical fact. Comments posted by friends
increased with hostility as we neared the 2016 presidential
election. I was prepared for differences of opinion, but not for the
aggressive rudeness with which seemingly kind and rational people
expressed ideas.
Then came the onslaught of fake news stories.
Nothing is new about fake news stories. Social media did not
invent them; it just made them infinitely more accessible to wider
audiences. Everyone knows the bold headlines of tabloids at the
grocery store checkout line, but even the legitimate press in our
nation’s history stretched the truth to sell papers before the objective
model of journalism emerged in the early 20th century as a more
competitive product to an increasingly diverse audience.
The facts-only format of the objective model took a beating
in the past decade, however, as millions logged onto social media
accounts. Advertising dollars followed the new audience, just as
advertisers in the 1950s deserted radio for television. Online news
sites multiplied to feed an increasing hunger for instant news, and
the conventions of objective journalism—like verifying news tips
with at least two sources—seemed costly and inefficient. A new
word entered the lexicon, clickbait, to refer to content geared to
tempt readers to click on news stories with embedded ads. When
hundreds of thousands of people “like” these stories and share them,
advertisers win.
My response to blatantly false stories on Facebook was an attempt
to investigate accuracy. I lived on and
“So glad to report this is not true,” I would type in response to a fake
news status posted by a friend. I then pasted in the fact-checking
article I hoped would be appreciated.
But it never was. “Wow,” would come the response. “I usually
check these things out—must have forgotten to this time.” And the
fake news stories continued.
It has not helped the public’s perception of the news media that
a new President Trump tweets “fake news” when stories contain
unfavorable coverage of his administration. But he is certainly
not alone.
When the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria killed more
than 80 people, and news organizations rushed to report the horrific
event, cries of “fake news” flooded the internet: the story was false,
intended to trick the president into intervention in the Syrian war, a
position he previously had argued against.
Joining this outcry were two of social media’s major players:
Mike Cernovich, who falsely claimed during the presidential
campaign that Hillary Clinton suffered from life-threatening
diseases; and Alex Jones, whose websit claimed the
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged to win support
for gun control.
What does “fake news” mean? Some consider it news stories that
contradict previously held convictions; for others it’s news stories in
which they perceive bias; and for some, fake news describes stories
they consider unworthy of coverage.
None of these definitions is correct. In this May’s new edition,
the venerable Associated Press Stylebook defines fake news as “the
modern phenomenon for deliberate falsehoods or fiction masked as
news circulating on the internet.”
But perceptions of bias, pursuit of the wrong stories, or attacks
on personal beliefs are problems, too, because they fuel distrust
of news organizations and inability to discern real news from fake
news.
What people perceive as fake news, then, is often what they
don’t want to believe.
A March 22 NewYork Times story by Amanda Taub and Brendan
Nyhan, “Why People Continue to Believe Objectively False Things,”
quoted Dartmouth College professor Sean Westwood’s theory that
America’s increasing partisanship has become a tribal identity that
shapes how we define ourselves and others. We end up supporting
our team at any cost, he is quoted as saying, and we oppose the other
team at any cost.
Worse, we may lack the critical thinking skills to determine what
is true in a given communication.
Last November, NPR reported a study by Stanford University’s
Graduate School of Education exploring students’ ability to assess
information sources.
The findings were grim. Responses of more than 7,800 middle
school, high school and college students in 12 states indicated that
more than 80 percent of middle schoolers couldn’t distinguish
between an ad and a news story, that more than a third of high
school students considered a fake news story more trustworthy than
a real news story, and that less than a third of college students could
discern political agendas in sources such as
What can be done?
Google and Facebook have both assumed responsibility for
addressing the problem of an environment that encourages rapid
spread of fake news. Facebook’s plans include paying fact-checkers
to monitor its news platforms, as well as adding a fact-checking
tool that informs users when an article’s claims have been disputed,
while Google has also added a fact-checking tool in its searches that
will include results from and
Professors who train journalists are also at work. Dr. Melissa
Zimdars, a communications professor at Merrimack College,
Perhaps most important, however, is that the press itself has
joined the fight with fervor. Investigative journalists everywhere
are rededicated to the painstaking work of seeking information
necessary for people to make wise decisions in a democracy.
Consider emailing them thanks for their efforts; remember that when
the press is gagged, the public loses.
Fake News
By Mimi Merritt
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