In a world where the legitimacy of news is constantly called into question by politicians and readers alike, whose responsibility is it to determine what is “fake news” and what is not?
It is both the reporter’s job to write factually accurate news, and the reader’s responsibility to check the legitimacy of their choice in news outlets, whether this outlet is online or through a news network.
But all news has one measurement in common that is ultimately connected to its value and newsworthiness: the ability of news in any form to catch the eye of a reader, a viewer or a listener.
From there, those who follow news are drawn into another conflict — the accuracy of the information being presented. Despite present day Twitter trends involving #fakenews and some politicians calling out news organizations as distributors of false information, the questioning of the media is not a purely modern occurrence.
Historically, governments have not only targeted the media, publicly attacking it through other news outlets, but certain governments have gone out of their way to silence journalists. This is because the media — legitimate news organizations and illegitimate alike — have the ability to spread information. And information, as they say, is power.
In “Media, History, Society: A Cultural History of U.S. Media,” Janet Cramer cites a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau report that stated, “U.S. citizens spend more time watching television, listening to the radio, surfing the Internet and reading newspapers than they spend doing anything else except breathing.”
With a variety of news outlets of both the mainstream and alternative variety, the generating of news has only grown over the years. So much so, in fact, that modern politicians use this as a reason to question the authenticity of even the most established news organizations.
To many, this may seem legitimate, if not for the fact that the invention of the internet and increase in media sources is not the first time the accuracy of the news was questioned.
For instance, the term “yellow journalism” originated with the New York papers around 1895 far earlier than the invention of the internet or creation of alternative online media. “Yellow Journalism is the flamboyant, sometimes grotesque, use of large headlines and large pictures and includes fraudulent or misleading information” (Cramer, 2009, p.140).
Sound familiar? How many social media stories come up on an individual’s news feeds, and how many of these articles share any of the characteristics that defined yellow journalism all those years ago?
The more modern term for many of these stories is “clickbait.” The accuracy of the information provided in these stories is often directly related to the credibility of the news source. Often these stories could be fact-checked with a simple Google search, far easier to do now than before the advent of the Internet.
So why are legitimate news organizations being questioned when fact-checking can be done so easily? Well, clickbait has an advantage where many legitimate news organizations’ articles lag behind: presentation.
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A clickbait story doesn’t have to hold legitimate information to be shared; it just has to look and sound good. Many actually look for these types of articles to solidify beliefs they already had prior to reading them.
When they share the story on their news feeds, friends and family often read these types of articles and share them as well without fact-checking, due to their own inherent trust in the one who originally shared the content. In the same vein, an individual may be more inclined to share false news if a prominent figure claims it to be true.
A legitimate news organization has to fight drawbacks that are inherent when trying to report unbiased news, one of the largest being that not everyone wants to hear the news — especially when it will negatively impact them or challenge their beliefs.
Does this mean that all mainstream news organizations strive for factually accurate news while alternative media distribute nothing but false, sensationalized news? Not necessarily. Both mainstream news organizations and alternative media are made up of people, and by nature people have their own inherent bias.
A reporter, whether they are a radio news broadcaster or a newspaper contributor, has a responsibility first to the people. This means overcoming personal biases to report accurate information to the best of their abilities. The reporter that does this best will generally have a more factual article than the reporter who relies on sensationalism.
So whether it’s an article shared by a family member or an article deemed “fake news” by a prominent politician, it is best to fact check yourself rather than taking another’s word for it. Because at the end of the day, it’s the reader of these articles that will ultimately decide the value of information, and what they do with it.
Nichole Harwood is a news reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Nolidoli1.
